Hiking the Romanian Carpathians - Crossing the Făgăraș Mountains [Balkans Ep3]
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 ноя 2017
- During the summer of 2017, I spent six weeks hiking and wild camping my way across lots of different mountain ranges throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Countries I visited included Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro and Croatia. I carried minimal equipment. Without food and water, my bag weighed just over 5kg’s, including a tent and cooking kit.
In between each walk, I enjoyed some hitchhiking, sightseeing, and other budget travel opportunities whilst resting and resupplying in towns.
I spent the first few weeks of my journey crossing the parts of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, from west to east. I then travelled to Sofia in Bulgaria and hiked the E4 trail over the Rila and Pirin mountains into northern Greece. After that, I crossed the Sar Mountains from Macedonia into Kosovo.
My final hike took me through the Accursed Mountains of Albania and down into Montenegro, where I finally stopped walking to enjoy some of the lovely beaches on the Adriatic Coast, before eventually flying home from Dubrovnik in Croatia.
This video shows the third hike of my journey, across the Făgăraș Mountains in Romania, as well as my stay in Brașov afterwards.
Everything was hastily filmed on a smartphone with a very shaky hand and a regretful ignorance of any kind of camera technique or directorial vision!
A big thank you goes out to all of those who helped me in the planning of my trip by answering my endless questions about route information and bears, etc. You know who you are!
This video features the songs 'Sable (feat. Tor)', 'Follow Meridian' and 'Mango Pulp (feat. Ian Ewing)' by Edamame: www.edamamebeats.com/
Find out more about my adventures by following me on Instagram:
/ richhartfield
![Hiking the Romanian Carpathians - The Parâng and Căpățânii Mountains [Balkans Ep2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUwXJIzt4BI/mqdefault.jpg)
![Hiking the Romanian Carpathians - The Parâng and Căpățânii Mountains [Balkans Ep2]](/img/tr.png)
![Hiking the Romanian Carpathians - The Retezat and Tulisa Mountains [Balkans Ep1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z2zH1RzatG0/mqdefault.jpg)
I went on these mountains for a hiking in July 2015 and I found this country so amazing that I didn't take my plane back. I stayed 3 years...
I can understand why- Romania is a beautiful country and the people are lovely!
the video and all is just amazing
Nice video! Welcome to Romania.
I run this year, trail marathon 46k in Fagaras Mountains 😀 Awesome mountains. 🏔️ Awesome vlogging there.
Wow that’s gonna be an amazing run! Best of luck to you! And thanks for watching :)
I am so glad you had a good time in my home country ! I went for a short trip to the Parang mountains about 7 years ago and enjoyed it tremendously !
Correction to your remark: "I guess now the country is developing now the first thing they are going to do is to exploit any natural ressource they got in abundance".
Actually, Romania is exploiting the woods without mercy since a very long time. The first industrial scale lodging was started when the soviets were importing wood from Romania through the SOVROMs (joint venture company between USSR and Romania) but Romania was getting like the lower part of the deal, exactly like it's happening today with the Austrians as they are the major beneficiary of the wood exploitation.
wow.....this is brilliant. i have always wanted to hike Romania. this is beautiful. awesome
Such amazing mountains, loving it.
Thanks for watching. Romania is a beautiful country.
Great video! Amazing places!
Thank you
Thanks for the kind words, and for watching :)
really enjoyed watching . thank you
Matthew Casey thanks for watching!
Wow....such amazing inclines
the " opening" music is hungarian btw... hungarian lyrics singed by a gipsy to be accurate
Enjoyed it, hugs from Romania
Emkill thanks for watching!
I think you described the logging problem very well, how it (unfortunately) comes with development. Thank you for having filmed and edited these awesome videos! I hope to one day go to the Carpathians as well, put first I'm gonna cut my teeth in smaller mountain ranges like the Ardennes/Black Forest!
Seb Brown thanks for the kind words Seb, your plan sounds sensible. I’d love to hike in the Ardennes. And yes, some use of a countries’ resources is necessary to sustain development but by all accounts I’ve heard from residents of Romania, the amount of logging going on there is way beyond what is ethical, and it is actually destroying Romania’s greatest ‘resource’: its irreplaceable wildlife and unique ecosystems. A real tragedy.
Completely agree - I just hope that the government or the people's sense of responsibilities/duties kicks in and can stop it in time
Great video!
Thank you very much for watching! :)
Hi Richard. I've found your channel and have been enjoying this series but was wondering if you remember how you found out about the routes you did. Most searches I do relating to walking in eastern Europe throws up guided tours. All I need is a pointer to what kind of thing you found useful in planning this trip (if you remember!). I'm really enjoying this series so far - it looks amazing.
Many thanks for sharing your experience
Benjamin Kettleborough cheers Benjamin! It was mostly a mixture of trawling the internet, asking local guides, looking at cicerone guidebooks and finding paths using digital maps on my phone.
@@RichardHartfield thanks Richard. Keep up the good work
Great treks, really enjoyed the views and vibes!
Cheers!
Mind giving a quick comparison between the Pyrenees and the Balkans, the good and the bad? At least cheaper I´d guess? How about steepness, distances between populated areas, trail markings etc...? And I have to say, that glacier looked super scary, glad you made it across :)
Hey. It's difficult to compare directly really. There are so many mountains in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that I never got to visit on this trip, so I can only relate to what I personally walked.
The Pyrenees certainly felt much bigger than anywhere I went on this summer's trip, in terms of the overall size of the mountain range. But that's not surprising really when you look at it on the map.
This year, I rarely encountered any terrain as technical as on the HRP, the main exceptions being the section of the Fagaras around Negoiu, the ascent of Maja Jezerce in the Albanian Alps, and the ascent of Kom Kucki in Montenegro.
The waymarking was generally much more frequent on most of this years' trip than on the HRP. The HRP often had very little, apart from when it coincided with the GR10 or GR11.
Because the ranges I hiked this year were smaller than the Pyrenees, it was easier to get down to a town or village more frequently on this trip.
And yes that 'glacier' was terrifying! Massive crevasses everywhere! haha!
Nice, thanks for answering! Proper mountains anyway, looks amazing! Still planning my own HRP for next year and looking for a shorter 1-2 week prep trip, these definitely go on the list of possible routes. Will you be uploading the rest of your trip?
Sounds like a good plan! Glad I could help. And yes I'm currently editing the footage from the Bulagria-Greece section!
when did you do the Fagaras traverse in 2017 ? i did it twice last year 1-8 of july and 2-9 of september - both time we had interesting weather :D hail the size of golf balls - and on the second trip we had a hurricane...
Kaare Meldgaard Hahaa! That does sound like interesting conditions! I did it late July/August time. Where did you escape from the hurricane? A refuge?
@@RichardHartfield no ... we were on the ridge in the beginning after Turnu Rosi - so we took our tents down (they collapsed/broke) sat behind a huge bolder (we were 6 - i work as a guide) for 6 hours until dawn came and wind died down a bit - and walked down back and took a ride around to where the road crosses the fagaras - so we missed that part - quite interesting ...
hey dude can you tell me what month you were there and what was the temperature like in the night? Im going there middle of september and Im wondering what sleeping bag to bring.
Hey! I went in august and it was often very hot during the day eg, ~30 deg Celsius (except in the retezat- where it was chilly and VERY windy!). Nighttime temps never dropped below freezing throughout the six weeks. Expect sept to be a bit colder, although who knows this summer… I’d take with a 0 degree C bag!
@@RichardHartfield thank you!
Hi Richard. Thanks for the great movie. We’re going to trek Fagaras ridge from East to the West or the other direction. We plan to do that in 8 days from Turnu Rosu to Zarnesti. Please tell me why did you go from the West to the East? What was the main reason? The Distance and the gain are almost the same. From what I see the hardest part of the trek is around Negoiu. Am I right?
I’m 67 and in good shape but I prefer to hike the hardest part and the most dangerous going up not down. As a guy who has done this what advice do you have.
Thanks
Hey Kaz, cheers for watching! I can't remember why I chose west to east to be honest... probably because that was what was recommended when I researched the route. But yeah Negoiu is the hardest bit, as it's got some scrambling, so if you'd rather do that section going up, then go west to east. Have a great trip!
Thanks Richard, I really appreciate your quick answer.
Esperando en las 3 partes si te ligaste una guajirita rumana ,........ y te fuiste en blanco.
Waiting in the 3 parts if you seduce a Romanian girl, ........ and you went blank.
Sorry to disappoint you Julio, I think I smelt too bad after all that hiking to seduce anyone 😆