June 27, 2020

It was one of my old desires to get to the Ciucas Mountains. I had already looked at the map, the hiking trails, and I knew them from the outside. Everything was ready for us to climb the mountain.

USEFUL INFO: The Ciucaș Mountains are beautiful in themselves. But it can make it even more beautiful when Rhododendron is just blooming. Its name also suggests that the plant lives above the pine forests, where the winter is not too harsh, the spring is cool and humid, and the summer is warm and humid. This beautiful flower blooms at a different time in each mountain and lasts for about 2 weeks during the peak flowering time. In the Ciucaș Mountains, it’s worth a try in the month of June (first two weeks) to get a good photo.

In 2020, it seemed like time was crazy too. The quarantine was lifted and we could go out, but the weekends were always shadowed by rain and not just small showers, but thunderstorms. I was constantly watching the weather forecast so we could go to the long-planned Ciucas Mountains on the first nice weekend.

• CHOICE OF LOCATION:

Since the mountains are not the closest to us, we set out to explore an entire weekend. I knew, it would be best to stay at the Ciucaș Peak Chalet (Cabana Vârful Ciucaș) either indoors or outdoors in a tent. But the Ciucaș Chalet is located at 1595 m. Due to the slope and condition of the road, it would not have been possible to get here by car, only by an all wheel drive vehicle. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we definitely planned tent sleep. Since we’ve only been on smaller, one-day tours so far this year until that trip, we didn’t dare take on the big backpacking, carry-on tour to the Chalet, so I looked for another option. I have heard that the Red Mountains Chalet (Cabana Muntele Roșu), can be reached by car and can also be tented. So I chose this as our destination, because all the sights were accessible from here as well.

• THE JOURNEY:

We set off early on Friday afternoon. Leaving Săcele after Brașov we headed for Cheia on road 1A. Passing the Bratocea pass, after descending the serpentine, we turned left towards the Red Mountains Chalet.

USEFUL INFO Asphalted, but narrow road leads to the Red Mountains Chalet.

USEFUL INFO it is NOT possible to camp at the Red Mountains Chalet !!! There is a large meadow that slopes very steeply to the forest, but this is a private area and the forest is a nature reserve.

Arriving at the Chalet, we saw that the conditions were not ideal for camping, but we had no choice elsewhere to sleep. So we pitched the tent on the edge of the clearing, which already had a tent. As you can read above, you can’t camp in the Red Mountains Chalet Valley. We didn’t know that, but soon the garrison showed up and enlightened us. We had no choice, we tore down our tent.

But now what? Where do we spend the night?

We decided to sleep in the car. It must have been funny if someone saw us. We pulled it up, pulled down the tent, then unpacked it from the car and packed it back into the car. Finally, we managed to furnish the car so we could sleep in it. Eventually, we could have slept more peacefully, the bear was having a harder time getting into the car, and the garrison warned that they had seen a mother bear nearby.

We took everything with us in the car, so we had the big camera. After dark, we took great pictures. The following pictures are the merits of Csaba Nagy:

• THE TRAIL:

Red Mountains Chalet (Cabana Muntele Roșu) (1280m) – Ciucaș Peak Chalet (Cabana Vârful Ciucaș) (1595m) – Țigăile Mari rock (1844m) – Gossiping Old Ladies (Babele la sfat) – Ciucas peak (1954m) – Țigăilor Saddle – Cabana Vârful Ciucaș – Chirușca Saddle – Gropșoarele Saddle – Intersection (La Răscruce) – Gropșoarele peak (1883m) – Zăganu peak (1814m) – Munetele Roșu peak (1765m) – Red Mountains Chalet

On Saturday morning, we started from the Red Mountains Chalet, we followed the yellow lane mark. At first the path was driving in the woods, then was crossing the Beer Stream (Pîrâul Berii), we turned onto the carriageway leading to the Ciucaș Peak Chalet, which is really very steep in some places. Coming out of the woods, Nicolae Ioan’s fountainis located next to the road.

The Ciucaș Peak Chalet is located at 1595 m altitude. The landscape is alpine-like, with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. From the Chalet we continued on the red lane and red cross signs on the wide, well-trodden hiking trail. Soon we saw the characteristic rocks of the Ciucaș Mountains, which were getting closer and closer. Then at an intersection we followed the red lane all the way to the top.

The trail passed below the peak of Țigăile Mari (1844m). We had a little rest here, admiring the view. It was then that we noticed that the Rhododendron was still blooming in some shadowed places, we missed the big flowering, but we were still happy. We climbed up to the rocks of the Gossiping Old Ladies and felt the force of the wind between the rocks.

We soon reached the top: Ciucaș peak, 1954 m, the highest peak in Ciucaș Mountains. We were well timed, there were few hiker at the top. The usual routine followed: photography, peak toasting, eating.

After the rest, we descended from the top at the red lane mark, all the way to the Țigăilor Saddle, where we turned onto the red cross pathway, which took our back to the Ciucaș Peak Chalet. Could someone be wondering why we didn’t go back there where we came? Simple! So we could see the landscape from a different perspective. The rock shapes were admired from all directions. David, Goliath and the rest. The Pigeon was especially worth seeing from this perspective as well!

The crowd of tourists who were seduced by the beautiful weather was amazing. I have never seen so many people on the mountain in my life. There could have been thousands.

At the Ciucaș Peak Chalet we could not miss not drinking a Ciucaș beer.

It was only around 2pm, so we chose the longer but more beautiful ridge as the way back to the car. For this we went on the path which also has 3 signs, the red lane, the red cross and the blue cross which runs right on the county border. We soon reached theChirușca Saddle, where we continued our journey on the red cross.

A kép a csúcson készült. Látszik rajta a Csukás Menedékház és a szemközt lévő hegygerinc melyen tovább vezetett utunk.

Arriving at the Gropșoarele Saddle we headed uphill to the ridge. When we got up, the Ciucaș Peak looked far away. At the intersection called the La Răscruce, we could choose to go back to the car, or walk down the ridge and look out from every peak. We had energy, we stood well over time, so we set off on the red cross, to attack Gropșoarele Peak and Zăganu Peak.

At the top of Gropșoarele peak (1883m) we really climbed to the edge of the cliffs. We saw the Red Mountains Chalet and the many cars of the tourists, including ours. We continued on the increasingly narrow ridge dwarfed with dwarf pines, towards the last attraction intended for today. The distance between the two peaks, not realistically measurable to the naked eye, was much farther than you thought, the path was stony, well descended, then climbed back, in some parts there were even chains. We successfully reached the Zăganu peak (1814m). We rested and enjoyed the rays of the sun. Suddenly the phone rings. RoAlert reported that they had seen a bear nearby. We looked at the name of the settlement on the map, it was a good distance. We calmed down not to be near ….

• MY MEETING WITH THE BEAR
• 

We headed back. Everyone has needs, even if it’s on a hill. So we pulled away a little to ease ourselves. We were a good 10 m apart. After we were done, I saw that Csabi was not waiting, going on. For this I shouted to him, I wanted to say CSABIIII “wait”. Instead of “wait”, it ended up in: IT IS A BEAR HERE! DO NOT BE SCARED!

About 2-3 m from me, on the ridge above me, among the low-growing pines, as I shouted, I started running, towards Csabi, a well-developed brown bear (scared of me). Csabi heard something, so he turned around.

He saw the bear running towards him. I never want to experience what he felt then, but it wasn’t better what I felt too. If the bear attacks him, what will be here ?! Fortunately, Csabi had so much soul presence that he raised his hand to a good height and shouted OH MY GOD!

The bear must have been about 3-4 meters away from him when he shouted this, and luckily Csabi also frightened the unfortunate animal. The bear began to run down the steep, tree-lined hillside.

There was silence.

My heart wanted to jump out. My brain hadn’t fully grasped what had happened yet.

A few seconds later, when we saw that there were no more bears, Csabi told me to go there. I couldn’t move. I was unable to move. He tells me to go there again. I took strength and hurried there.

We started to go very fast. We didn’t run, the terrain wouldn’t have allowed it anyway, as I wrote, stony, up and down steep sections, and a chained section. The chains seemed not to be there either, we stormed through them, the adrenaline throbbing in our veins. I felt my head start to ache, I quickly took a painkiller, now I needed all my strength.

To the La Răscruce, we made the hourly journey in about half an hour. We have already met people here. We stopped for a rest.

A tourist caught up with us and asked if we had seen the bear? We said it up close. It turned out that he was climbing up the other side of the ridge and saw the bear. The bear came up to the ridge where he met us, we chased him down the other side of the ridge.

Surely everyone has heard that there are many bears in Romania. That there are many bears in the eastern and southern Carpathians. That if you go out to the toilet in the evening groping and you feel something soft the bear and so on. I knew there were bears, I even wore my whistle, but until then I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I didn’t want to see it so close, but luckily it ended well. Since then, I not only wear my whistle, but also use it !!!

At the La Răscruce, still under the influence of the bear, but already a little calmed down among the people, at the red triangle sign, we descended to the Red Mountains Chalet, passing by the Red Mountains peak (1766m).

In the evening we saw the sky from the side of the car. We were glad to end up sleeping in the car, not in the tent.

In one day we ticked the Ciucaș Mountains: we climbed its highest peak, hiked around its famous cliffs, saw Rhododendron, drank Ciuc beer on Ciucaș, walked along the main ridge route and we were bearded. You can’t wish for more content than that.

Time stood by us all day and gifted us with beautiful weather.

It remains an eternal experience. If you go for it, watch out for the bears!

My Strava recording:

My Wikiloc trailmap: