Negoiu – Fagaras Mountains

Before the Mures-Olt Marathon on 23rd of June, we’ve decided to do some high altitude training from Balea to Negoiu on 17’th of June. The forecast was more than promising and we were more than eager to go up on Fagaras main ridge. Last time when I did this route was 2 years ago… I still remember my knees really killed me and more than half of the route I struggled to walk and to get back to the car. This time I wanted to be different, I wanted to enjoy this beautiful route and come back to the car smiling.

I’ve called Balea hut on Friday to ask if the road is opened to cars from Balea Cascada to Balea Lake. They confirmed so I was ecstatic, but when entering the Transfagarasean national road there was a plate saying that the road was closed :(. I’ve continued till Balea Cascada and I’ve noticed that one way of the road was opened … so I’ve continued to go up. After a few km I’ve realized that I was not the only one … the Barbecue Guys were there before me to occupy the best positions. I like also to barbecue but to see it done on Transfagarasean … I really hate it! Come on, can’t you just let this beautiful piece of nature like it is. Why the fuck would want to spoil it with your shitty barbecue. Can’t you just take some food with you and eat it there on a blanket (and than take your garbage with you)? I’m looking forward for the barbecue law to finally be in place !!!

Anyway we’ve arrived at 9:30 at Balea Lake, prepared for the hike and started the first climb to Laita peak. The weather was a little cold, but after a few minutes of climbing it was just great.

After we’ve reached Laita the view was great … there is a lot of snow though on the shaded parts of the ridge. Form Laita peak we’ve started to run. We were so much enjoying it that we’ve started to shout :). Excellent !!!

Until the base of Laitel peak the route is really runnable and beautiful. The ridge line is well above 2100 m so it makes a really good altitude training for increasing the lungs capacity. After 1h:15 min we were up on Laitel. The view towards Caltun and Negoiu was absolutely wonderful. We took some pictures and continued running till Caltun where we had some cereal bars.

After Caltun there is a small climb and after … a lot of snow was on the route. An ice ax would have been quite useful in case of a slip … but we were very careful and manage to cross the tricky potions without it.

We wanted to climb through Strunga Dracului like last time, but when we’ve arrived at the base of it the cables were broken. We slowly continued up with no help from the cables and at the middle of it we’ve realized that the reason for the broken cables was a massive rock slide :(. Again, extremely careful we’ve passed the tricky portions and close to the end the route was again safe. After finishing Strunga Dracului we’ve saw a piece of metal were it was written that Strunga Dracului was closed due to rock slides :(. It would have been helpful to have the same sign on the base of the route, but we were happy that everything went well.

We’ve continued to climb to Negoiu and around 12:00 we were up on the peak. The view … excellent. We could see Sibiu, Vidraru dam and a lot of Fagaras ridge. However there were a lot of annoying flies :(. We’ve relaxed half an hour on the peak and than climbed down through Strunga Doamnei.

At Caltun we had a sandwich, some water and than continued. Again we’ve really enjoyed the runnable portions of the route and around 4 PM we were back at Balea.

The weather was extremely good, the mountain great and we’ve really enjoyed the whole experience. Most importantly I arrived at the car with a smile on my face and absolutely no pains,

I will finish this post with a warning – be careful to avoid Strunga Dracului. This route will be probably closed and climbing down through it its extremely dangerous.

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