ᐅ Summit Nº 15 Moldoveanu Peak (Romania)

SUMMITS

SUMMIT Nº 15: Moldoveanu Peak (ROMANIA)

ROMANIA

Moldoveanu Peak

13/10/2023

ALTITUDE

2.544 m

JORDI GIRONA AND ANDREU LÓPEZ

DIFFICULTY LEVEL

LOW

CHRONICLE

Jordi Girona and I met at Kilimanjaro (Top Summit No. 12) last April and we immediately established a great connection. He is a great lover of nature, someone extremely respectful of it and with a lot of experience in the mountains. We have quite divergent ways of acting but we converge a lot in the depth and essence of things, in how we want and like this activity, in the desire we have to discover new routes and territories. I told him about the TSOW project in Africa, he liked it and was very encouraged and immediately the destination Romania appeared in our conversations. Jordi is a great ornithologist and he wanted to know the birds of that area and in my case I felt like a call… a call from Dracula that invited me to discover the Carpathians, Transylvania, its castles (Cáscaras, Bran…) its churches Orthodox, among others.

We took advantage of the long weekend on October 12 to go on a 5-day trip. The first stop was in Bucharest, which with 1.9 million inhabitants is one of the largest cities in Europe (the 5th most populated in the European Union) and is a city strongly marked by its communist past and the megalomaniac constructions of the dictator. Ceausescu. A visit to the capital of the country is only worth booking a maximum of 1 day and in our case, one afternoon would be more than enough time.

Although the people of Bucharest are not at all proud because it involved the demolition of an entire neighborhood, it is a mandatory stop to visit (externally) the Parliament, which is the second largest in the world after the US Pentagon. Additionally, it is also interesting get to know, both externally and internally, the Orthodox churches and if you are lucky and coincide with a religious ceremony you will be able to see how devout the Romanian population is. Finally, you should enjoy a walk around the Great Central Square (also known as Piata Unirii) which is full of fountains and connects, through a boulevard, with the presidential palace (omnipresent from all parts of Bucharest) .

We retire early to the room since we have a puzzle to solve. Top Summits is a global adventure that combines tourism with the challenge of ascending the highest peak of each country in the world and for weeks we have had doubts about which of the 3 routes to climb to the summit is the ideal one and at the same time best fits our needs. travel possibilities. To our surprise, we found practically no information… we decided to contact local people on Instagram who have recently completed the ascent. We decided on the route that starts from Stana Lui Brunei.

The approach of more than 40 km per track made us doubt it since in the periods in which snow or water appear, it becomes impracticable. This year we are in luck since high temperatures and climate change are unfortunately present on a planetary scale and although this road a few years ago would have been impossible on October 12, this year they tell us that there is no problem when traveling by vehicle . So having resolved the issue of the approach by vehicle, the question of the route itself does not present any inconvenience since the itinerary that starts from Stana Lui Brunei, involves a duration of around 12 km, 1,000 meters of positive slope and without excessive complications. techniques.

We leave Bucharest at 8:00 in the morning since we have 6 hours of driving (4 hours to the beginning of the forest track and 2 hours from the track itself to the starting point of our route). The route by car allows us to take the two Permanías: one more metropolitan and the other, both a good point to enter Transilvània, more agrarian, rural and forestry.

We arrived around 2:00 p.m. at Stana Lui Brunei (1,450 meters high) and given that it is a closed and shady valley and that the day does not last too long in terms of light, we decided to spend the afternoon doing some reconnaissance on behalf of the itinerary that we will complete tomorrow. Jordi doesn’t walk for long (he doesn’t arrive on time) and in my case, after so many hours sitting in the car, I feel like walking. I reach 2,050 meters at the foot of Moldoveanu and where I find evidence of the presence of a bone in the shape of a large footprint (Transylvania is one of the regions in the world with the greatest presence of this animal and there are an estimated 7,000 specimens). I run back and arrive at the car at 6:30 p.m., where I find Jordi, who was already starting to worry, waiting for me.

We talked about logistics and despite the presence of plantigrades, we decided that Jordi sleeps in the tent and in my case he sleeps inside the car. We eat a little food and at 8:30 p.m. we go to sleep since we don’t have anything else to do either.

Sleeping in a car is not the best thing in the world but let’s say that I have had worse nights and that I feel that I have more or less rested. The valley is very closed, it could be called Vall Fosca of Romania, and we did not start walking until 8:15.

The initial section is a fairly steep wall of 600 meters (+) that gains height at a good pace while behind us we have a very nice view of the valley and we see how our car is getting smaller. Once this initial slope of 600 meters (+) has been overcome, a beautiful landscape appears before us: first of all we have a long plain of 1.5 km through which the course of the river circulates and further in the background a chain of mountains appears where the The objective of the day: Moldoveanu and its 2,544 meters.

We progress quickly across the great plain while exchanging impressions with local hikers who reassure us regarding the bone attacks since they tell us that they are animals that are afraid of human presence and that at the slightest noise they move away.

Immediately after crossing the plain, we reach the foot of the mountain and there are 400 meters (+) of elevation left that are segmented into 2 sections. Firstly, a fairly steep slope of 200 meters (+) that brings us closer to a neck from which we have views of other valleys from where other routes leave and from where only 5 minutes away there is a free shelter that is quite busy and well-known among local hikers. (Vistea Madre Refuge). We rest a little in the neck, we take advantage of the arrival of coverage to give signs of life to our environment detached from 24 hours without a telephone signal and we resume our march quickly since the sky is getting ugly.

The last 200 meters (+) of unevenness, although they present some sections equipped with chains, do not present absolutely any difficulty and very soon the Romanian flag appears before us and a sign that we have conquered the roof of the Carpathians at the same time as the maximum elevation of the country. The views from above are privileged, although drops are beginning to fall and we will not stop to eat. Very happy on a personal level to achieve my 15th Top Summit.

The summit is followed by a 2 kilometer ridge that loses height at a very low speed and that allows us to enjoy the views of both sides of the mountain. The excursion ends with a beautiful stretch of forest, first with the presence of pine trees and then fir trees.

Once the Moldoveanu adventure and the discovery of the Carpathians are over, we will leave Transylvania to go to the beautiful city of Brasov, which has a very charming center. Other stops on our trip would be Bran Castle or more popularly known as Dracula’s Castle, although a visit inside the castle is completely unnecessary (it is a tourist attraction that lives off the legend of the book written by the Irishman Bram Stoker).

Our last tourist trip in Romania was spent in Sinaia where we enjoyed the exterior visit of the Castle of Shells and the charm of the surroundings of the fortress.

Our “express” adventure comes to the end but we are very satisfied with everything we have been able to do, know and discover in just 5 days and most importantly, safe and sound from vampire attacks.