A Tale of two Peaks

Mountain hikers in Romania know that the months of September and early October can offer some of the best hiking days during the year. The weather can take and form up there on the summits, but every autumn there are one or two periods of several days in a row with very stable and beautiful weather.

This year we just had such a week with wonderful autumnal weather. Warmer than usual, dry, with deep blue sky and almost no winds high on the summits. The cooler and dry weather also means that the atmosphere is clearer than in summer, offering stunning views from the mountain tops. The air gets even clearer during the sunny and frosty winter days.

Last week I did two speed hikes up on the mountains to two famous peaks of the Southern Carpathians:

• Fagarasi Mountains: Moldoveanu Peak (2544m), the highest point of Romania
• Bucegi Massif: Omu Peak (2505) the highest peak in Bucegi Massif and just north of it, the prominent Bucsoiu Peak (2492m) 

On both trips we were rewarded with beautiful views that reached far far away, over 100km in distance. I was surprised to recognize the silhouette of Bucegi mountains seen from Moldoveanu Peak!

In a straight line, the distance between the two peaks is not that great, about 59km, but there are many mountain crests in between.  It is easy to recognize the shape of Bucegi mountains and the distinct triangular shape of Bucsoiu Peak from Moldoveanu Peak. However, looking the other way from Bucegi mountains, it is much harder to identify Moldoveanu peak among the multiple peaks and crests of Fagaras Mountains. I only identified it on the photo later at home, with the help of Google Earth software.

From Moldoveanu I could also see to the east another even more distant mountain. I was not sure what it was, until I got got home and checked with Google Earth. It was Ciucas massif, 93km away!  On a winter day, with much clearer atmosphere, I may have recognize the rocky peak of Ciucas.

As I try to be as light as possible on my mountain runs and hikes, I only had the camera of my phone with me. It is just good enough for documenting the trip. Here are some of the best photos I took during the trips.

Power hiking in Fagarasi Mountains:

Climbing on Vistea Valley on the north side of the main ridge

On Moldoveanu Peak

Looking west along the mighty Fagarasi ridge

Looking East from Moldoveanu Peak

Bucegi Mountains as seen from Moldoveanu Peak

Ciucas Mountains seen from Moldoveanu Peak

Looking East along the main ridge of Fagarasi Mountains

A look back to the main ridge of Fagarasi from Vistea valeey

And some photos from the sky running trip in Bucegi Mountains.

Looking north from the western side of Bucsoiu Peak

Looking north from Bucsoiu Peak

Looking west from Bucsoiu Peak. In the distance, Fagarasi Mountains

I believe that this is Moldoveanu peak as seen from Bucsoiu Peak

The central, south looking valley of Bucegi Mountains. Obarsiei valley

View of Bucsoiu Peak from below Scara Peak

Looking to Bucsoiu peak, across Tiganesti valley

Looking east towards Piatra Craiului Massif

The amazing terrace of Malaiesti Challet, on the beautiful Malaiesti Valley

Running with a view: Bratocea Ridge in Ciucas Mountain

Saturday was a perfect autumn day for trail running high on the mountains. It was warm, sunny and windless with great visibility. The early snow of last week is almost entirely gone.

I have chosen to run in Ciucas mountains, along Bratocea Ridge, a rather easy but very spectacular trail running route. This is a popular route for hiking, trail running, ski touring and even mountain biking. It is easy to reach, as it starts from Bratocea pass, just by the 1A National Road. The route follows Bratocea ridge from the pass (1263m) up to Ciucas mountain top at 1952m. It measures about 7.5 kilometers one way with about 750m of accumulated elevation gain. We extended a bit the route with a short loop in the Peak area. Our route had almost 18 kilometers that we did it in 2h40.

On a beautiful day, with clear atmosphere, the views from this route are simply breathtaking. As Ciucas is a quite isolated peak located in the bend of the Carpathian Mountains, the views from the top open for more than a hundred kilometers in all directions.

Here are some photos I have taken on Saturday while running along this route.

Bratocea Pass.  Early morning, the car park is empty. It will be full later!

Starting the run in the morning sunshine 

The route starts wit a winding dirt road through a large meadow

View of Cheia Mountain Resort. It looks cold down there!

Tigaile Mari rocks. These ate typical Ciucas rock shapes.
The conglomerate rocks are shaped by the strong winds that often blow here.

The final ascent to the top

A look east to the other side of the mountain

A rock solid kiss...

A look to the west from Ciucas Peak over the Bratocea ridge. In the distance Bucegi Mountains

Looking towards south-west from Ciucas peak

Looking towards north east from Ciucas peak

The steep east side of the peak

Bucegi Mountains still keeping some of last week snow

Bucegi again...

Looking towards North-west to Piatra Mare and Postavarul mountains

Running with a view 

Last view of Bucegi Mountains before descending into the forest 

Back to Brasov on the 1A road

Ciucas Trail Marathon 2013

This Saturday I ran my fourth full marathon. I participated in the Marathon Race of the Ciucas Trail event. The event has three races. A half-marathon, a marathon and an 100km individual ultra-marathon. Last year I ran the half-marathon so this time and I wanted to do the full marathon race.

One month before the event I did a reconnaissance run on the marathon route; an illustrated description of the route can be found in an older post. Knowing the route meant that I did not have any orientation issues during the race. The trails were very well marked, except a few key crossroad points that could have been better signaled. Unfortunately a few of the best runners got lost and ended up doing a different route... not necessarily easier.

The weather was cold, wet and quite windy on the exposed mountain top. When I left Brasov in the morning it was raining heavily and I was mentally preparing myself for running in the cold pouring rain. Luckily the rain gradually eased and eventually stopped just before the race start! I ran with a thin merino wool shirt. I also had my running jacket with me and used it on the windy sections. At the end it wasn't that cold and the woolen shirt was a bit too much and got quite wet, but without causing too much discomfort.

On my way to Ciucas peak  - photo by Camelia Varsescu

Once more, I ran the race without any watch or GPS device. I really like racing this way. I study the map before the race and I make a race plan. During the race I always have a good idea where I am and how to manage my energy. I also tried to run my own race, not paying too much attention to the other competitors. I did not want to get exhausted and also did not want to hammer my knees on the downhills. At the beginning of the race, in the forest, the trails were a bit muddy. However, much of the route had really good running conditions. The wet trails were better than during the reconnaissance run when they were very dry and dusty.

After the first 10 kilometers my place in the race stabilized. I am quite good on uphills so I almost caught up with a few runners on Ciucas top. However, soon, on the downhill they disappeared in the distance ahead of me as I was carefully running downhill. During the downhill I was expecting to be overtaken by several runners, but nobody did. Later I learned that just after I started my descent from the peak, it was covered in a thick fog so the next runners got lost in the fog for about 10 minutes. Actually after passing by Ciucas Hut one runner (Florin Simion) overtook me. He was ahead of me until the hut, but stopped there, while I decided to skip the hut stop on my way down to the finish line.

I finished with quite a good time: 4h52. Almost the same time as on the reconnaissance run, but that time I skipped a 5.5km section of the route that also included a long 300m elevation gain ascent. I could probably be 10 minutes quicker if I would have run faster downhill. I preferred however to be careful with my knees and to avoid slipping on the muddy sections. I managed to finish the 13th of the 168 competitors, and the 7th in my age category. Not a bad result, but many good runners were either absent from this event, or were running the ultra or the half marathon races.

I want to thank the organizers and the volunteers for the effort they spent to organize this event. It is not an easy task to manage three different races in the same day. The bad weather made it more difficult. I also know that they had some serious unexpected issues that made organizing the event even harder.

I am now concentrating on my last marathon of 2013. The famous and spectacular Piatra Craiului Marathon. See you there!

Reconnaissance Run in Ciucas Mountain

There is one more month until the popular Ciucas Marathon trail running competition. A good time for a "reconnaissance mission" on the race route. Last year I ran the half-marathon race. This year I registered for the full marathon. More than half of the marathon route follows trails that I did not knew at all. I did this running tour with Cristian, a very experienced trail runner and orienteer. The route of the marathon is a bit changed from the last year race so Cristian was also curious to explore the new route.

We ran 32km of the race route. We skipped the first and last kilometer through Cheia mountain resort and also the 5.5km loop between the second and the fourth check-points. I had my GPS device with me and I loaded on it the race track as provided by the organizers. It helped us to find our way on the new route sections although the orienteering skills of Cristian were often better than the GPS track on my device...

Here is the the GPS track of the run as recorded by my GPS device during the tour:

We started and ended our tour by the national road DN1A, near Cheia mountain resort, at an altitude of roughly 1050m. The official start/finish line is in the center of Cheia resort, a bit more than one kilometer away.

First 8km of the route are through mostly beech tree forest, heading westwards along the foothills of Ciucas Mountain. The route goes uphill until the point where it separates from the half-marathon route. It then goes mostly downhill until it reaches the beautiful meadows of Poiana Stanei.

From Poiana Stanei, the official marathon route has an 5.5km loop on the wooded hills on the right side of Stanei Valley. We skipped this loop as we did not want to run much more than 30km and we also wanted to reach the top of Ciucas mountain.

From Poiana Stanei, the route follows the Stanei valley. This was the new part of the route which neither of us knew. The valley gradually narrowed. The forest road became a single trail that followed the bottom of the valley. Soon the valley narrowed and became an gorge. The trail disappeared but the trail markings showed us that we have to follow the valley uphill through the gorge.

This was the most technical part of the route, with frequent small rocky thresholds between runable sections on the gravel and sand gorge floor.

At some point up the valley the water stream disappeared. I guess that it flowed deeper below the gravel and sand. Without the water stream, moving along the gorge became easier.

We enjoyed much the gorge. It was the surprise of the day. What I imagined that would be a rather dull run along a valley through the forest became a route full of surprises and small obstacles. However I would not like to be in this gorge during a flash flood caused by a summer storm...

Out of the gorge, at about 1400m altitude we reached the high pastures of the eastern flank of Zanoaga mountain. Here we followed the GPS track and soon Cristian, with his orienteering sixth sense realized that we made a small detour from the marked trail which was shorter.

Soon we reached the shepherd hut where the fifth race checkpoint will be located. A large pack of rather aggressive dogs "welcomed" us here... Luckily Cristian had his walking poles and gave me one of them. The shepherds were also there so they could call the dogs before we had to use the poles... I hope that during the race the dogs will be taken somewhere else, far from the trail... Especially that I do not plan to take walking poles with me during the race...

Out of the forest we finally got a glimpse of the Ciucas peak.

We soon reached Ciucas chalet where we stopped for some extra hydration as our water reserve was half consumed. I found the surroundings of the chalet very depressing. A large area around the chalet looks like a big abandoned construction site that scars the mountain. The chalet was full of pseudo-hikers having their lunch in a kitsch style decorated restaurant. We spent about 12 minutes here resting a bit before climbing the peak.

From the chalet we started the final climb towards the Ciucas Peak (1954m). We met many hikers along the route. The peak was also packed with hikers. It was just a little bit windy and as our t-shirts were wet we decided not to stop here, but to make a short break lower, below the peak.

We descended from the peak on the trail that goes to Bratocea pass. A pity that the entire trail is not included in the marathon route as this is a very nice trail for running and has great panoramic views. From Tigailor saddle we turned to the south back to the chalet, following the trail below the spectacular southern rocky side of the peak.

We passed again by Ciucas chalet, but this time we did not stop there. We continued with the steep descent towards Berii valley. This is a really ugly and very steep dirt road, the main access to the chalet. Lower on the valley floor there is a water spring, just in the middle of the trail. We stopped here to refill our bottles with the fresh cold water that gushes out on two pipes. Soon we left the valley and headed south on the marked trail to Muntele Rosu.

From Muntele Rosu, we followed another rather steep dirt road through the forest and we reached a beautiful meadow that offered us beautiful views towards Zaganu Mountain. The half-marathon route follows Zaganu main ridge, while the marathon route goes around it.

From the meadow until the national road near Cheia, where the car was left, the route follows an almost flat but very rocky dirt road. I ran slowly here. It was quite hot, I felt quite tired and did not want to twist an ankle now, towards the finish.

It took us less than 5 hours to return back to the car. Not a bad time as we ran quite relaxed, stopping several times during the route. I also stopped many times along the route to take photos and I ran the downhills at a safe and relaxed pace, making Cristian to wait for me on almost every descent...

I liked the route. I found the most enjoyable parts to be the Stanei valley gorge and the Ciucas peak with its wonderful 360 degrees panorama. However I think that the half-marathon route which I did last year is more spectacular as it follows the entire Zaganu ridge.

So now I am a bit more prepared for the marathon race. See you there!