Memories from this year – Piatra Craiului North Ridge

It was almost the beginning of August and so far I wasn’t able to find some time to climb on Piatra Craiului ridge. I’ve made a lot of sightseeing in that area either with my bike or by foot, but each time I was stopping at Curmatura(1470 m) or below the ridge. So along with two friends we’ve decided to go for the ridge this time no matter what :).

This was the established route:

Botorog – Curmatura – Padinile Frumoase –  Ascutit – Piscul Baciului – Grind – Prapastiile Zarnestiului – Botorg.

Its quite a long route and you need some training to finish it in one day … having in mind that you will definitely stop for pictures.

So early in the morning – 8 AM we’ve started from Botorg and climb in about 1,5 h to Curmatura. There we’ve stoped for that wonderful tea – rododendron with brandy 🙂

At 9.45 we’ve started from Curmatura, next stop being Ascutit (2150 m).

The weather was wonderful, maybe a little too hot, and a lot of tourists were on this route. Being almost an year since my last climb on Piatra Craiului ridge I’ve started the climb with times on my mind. I wanted to see how fast I can climb this route. So I left my friends a little behind and I’ve started to overcome the groups who were climbing slower or just slower than me 😀

At 11.00 I reached Ascutit and the ridge was looking wonderful.

We’ve stopped there to eat something and after half an hour we started for the next check point – Piscul Baciului (2239). The same thought was in my mind … what time do I need to finish this part of the North ridge?

But I had to stop a couple of times to take some pictures 🙂

And again

This one was recovered from a paparazzi 😀

I was feeling really great. The sun was shining, the ridge was beautiful, all the ingredients for a wonderful day. I went directly on the ridge although the path was going around some peaks.  In some portions I had to do some easy climbing, but the difficulty was quite low. In some portions near Timbale there are some exposed areas but I didn’t wanted to cheat … only on the ridge.  We’ve started our route for about an hour and Piscul Baciului was looking closer and closer. Finally after 1,5 hours I reached the peak, closely followed by my friends. The peak was really crowded as you can see.

After 30 minutes the peak was all ours so I could take another shot just with me 🙂

More than half of the people who were on the peak didn’t have proper equipment, mainly shoes. I didn’t wanted to be in their place when they descent. We decided to go on Coltii Gainii and not follow the regular route down. I was very happy with this decision because a lot of flowers – flori de colt- were in that area. And now some artistic shots 🙂

After a long walk from the base of Piatra Craiului to Botorg we reached our car at 8 PM.

Although is October I still remember that day and how good I was feeling on the ridge. When I reached Piscul Baciului I wasn’t feeling any fatigue in my muscles or in my joints. I was feeling sorry that we didn’t thought to do the whole ridge in that day. Piata Craiului’s Noth ridge is a very nice route, not very challenging but a little longer for those how don’t have some training. I’m planning this year to do the same route in the winter, but till winter comes maybe I will give it a shot this week-end as the weather forecast is  looking good.

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