Piatra Craiului and Făgăraş ridge (120 km)

  Speed hike by the route through Romania's highest peaks the Piatra Craiului and Făgăraş ranges, covering approximately 120 kilometers, we finished on the morning of the fourth day... The ascents and descents on rocky surfaces, overnight stays in Refugios - free touristic huts at altitudes above 2000 meters, as well as caves in the cliffs were the most memorable for us...

 Crossing the Ukraine-Romania border on foot in the town of Solotvyno, we immediately found ourselves in the Romanian town of Sighetu Marmației, from where we took a night train to the city of Brașov... Arriving in Brașov early in the morning, we bought tickets for the train to the town of Zărnești, from the train station of which our hike began...

An interactive map of the route...

  Around 10 in the morning, we began our ascent to the ridge...

 Clouds would sometimes cover the ridge and then disperse, occasionally blessing us with drops of rain... 

  In the Piatra Craiului and Făgăraş ranges, even at altitudes above 2000 meters, there are small free shelters for tourists, known as Refugios... You can wait out bad weather there or spend the night, but it's essential to bring enough water, as it's not always available nearby... All our nights were spent in refugios, without even unpacking the tent...

  Piatra Craiului translates to "Prince's Stone"... We tried running on this stone, but the narrow paths along rocky cliffs didn’t allow for much speed... The ridge is absolutely unlike any of its Carpathian counterparts...

  Even the highest peak of the ridge - La Om (2238 m) has an entirely atypical name... Inviting everyone to pronounce the sacred sound of eternity OM...

  Crossing the Piatra Craiului ridge took almost a whole day, and instead of our usual average pace of 50 km per day, we covered only 24... A late start, difficult terrain, heavy backpacks, and incredible landscapes didn’t allow us to move faster... We managed to run a bit only at the end of the descent to our night stop...

  We spent the first night in a refugio, slightly off the main trail that runs between the Piatra Craiului and Făgăraş ranges... There was water two hundred meters below the refugio. Inside, another couple from Poland stayed with us...  

  The next day, crossing a meadow densely covered with raspberry bushes between the Piatra Craiului and Făgăraş ranges, we saw a large bear... Hearing us, the bear dashed into the forest, and we continued running along our path... Then we realized we had gone the wrong way and went back to find our trail...

 We covered 44 kilometers on the second day... 

  ДThe second night was spent in a refugio at an altitude of 2300 meters... Inside, everything was quite austere, but it was well sheltered from the wind and warmer than outside. There were almost no mattresses on the beds. Finding a one-meter piece, we used it to support our backs...  

   This refugio, like most of its kind, was in a very picturesque location on the ridge itself...

  The next day, early in the morning, we ascended to the highest point in Romania, the summit of Mount Moldoveanu...

  Perfect visibility allowed us to enjoy the views...

   If in the first two days we saw almost no tourists, on the third day there were plenty... The reason for this is accessibility... For example, it is very easy to reach the ridge from the Transfăgărășan highway...  

  Ascending from the highway to the ridge, spending less than an hour on the ascent, you can observe such views...  

  A very good place to take a break...

  The views became increasingly "harsh"...

  The first sign that our plan to finish that day wouldn't come true was the rocky ascent to Romania's second-highest peak Negoiu (2535 m)... Although it was possible to ascend via an easier traverse, we didn’t want to leave the red mark...

   Further, the rocky passages between the Negoiu and Serbota peaks became even steeper... No wonder they are considered the most difficult section of the Făgăraş ridge...

 Passing these sections, in the face of fatigue, ultimately slowed our pace, allowing us to cover only 30 kilometers... We stopped for the night in a crowded refugio behind the Serbota peak..

 After overcoming the most challenging sections, on the morning of the fourth day, we had only to run down to the village of Sebeșu de Sus...

  A typical sign of civilization—a cemetery... 

Descending to the village, we gradually began hitchhiking to the city of Sibiu...

   Then we hitchhiked through Romania towards Hungary... We spent the night a hundred kilometers from the Romanian-Hungarian border, and the next day we reached Hungary... We were taken across the border by a guy with a kayak and a bicycle attached to the roof of his car...