European Mountains
Bulgaria
Musala (2925m), Malka Musala (2902m), Irechek (2852m), Deno
(2790m), July 9 2011
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route descriptions, other trip reports, etc.)
Bourgas and the Black Sea
(Click for larger image)
Background
This summer holiday was to be spent in northern
Norway, but a ... very disappointing ... weather forecast made Anne and me
change our plans for the first week, 2 days before we were to travel north. Anne
suggested Bulgaria - knowing that there was a direct flight from
Ålesund to Bourgas. My reaction was "Let's do it", and in
record time, Anne arranged the flight, the hotel for the first night and a rental
car. Two days later, we were on a plane to Bourgas and this would be my first
visit to eastern Europe.
I knew *nothing* about
Bulgaria. I had bought a guide book, managed to get hold of a map of the
Bulgarian mountains for my handheld GPS and hoped that my TomTom
(GPS for the car) would safely guide us on the Bulgarian roads.
The currency was also a big
question. What were we to use inside the country? Our search on the internet
gave us no firm
answer to the question, so we decided to settle for Euro. But the ATM at the
Ålesund airport Vigra was out of order, and now were on our way to
Bulgaria without money. No big issue, but still...
July 7 2011 - To Bulgaria
We landed in Sarafovo
outside Bourgas 00:30am (local time) and after picking up our luggage, we got
hold of Bulgarian currency (lev) from the airport ATM. Outside, it was extremely
hot. Could I survive for one week with such a temperature? We knew that
the Sea Horse Hotel was only a 5-minute walk from the hotel, but we
didn't know the direction and seeking help at the airport was futile. We ended
up taking a taxi and managed to negotiate the fare down to 15 levs.
Two minutes later, we checked
into the Sea Horse Hotel. The manager quickly earned the nickname "Ok, no
problem my friend" - possibly repeated a bit too often. We got an OK room
with air condition and a balcony (55 levs per night), and it was time to sit
down for a minute and let everything sink in (including the cold beer that I
bought at the hotel reception...). One thing was clear - Sarafovo was a
practical village, with both the airport and the beach in walking distance...
Sarafovo street map
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July 8 2011 - Travel day and base-camp
Borovets
After breakfast, we went down
to the Sarafovo beach by the Black Sea and had a morning swim. The
temperature in the water was just amazing. Afterwards, we checked out of the
hotel and walked back to the airport to pick up our rental car. They said they had a Chevrolet for us, and I quickly imagined a large, comfortable
car. To my disappointment, a
Bulgarian Chevrolet is NOT the same as the American version...
We turned on the TomTom,
which instantly complained that it hadn't received any map updates in 28 months.
But hopefully, no dramatic changes had happened to the Bulgarian road system in
the meantime. The number one goal for us was to hike Musala - not only
the highest peak in Bulgaria but also the highest mountain top on the entire
Balkan peninsula. We had chosen the town of Borovets (at the foot of
the Rila mountains) to be our base-camp for a couple of days, and we asked
TomTom to help us get there.
Once out of Bourgas - and
away from the Black Sea, the Bulgarian countryside opened up in front of us. To
the northwest were the Balkan mountains and to the southwest we could see
the Rodopi mountain range. We were soon forced to adopt the Bulgarian way of driving
in order to a) avoid accidents with meeting traffic and b) avoid
building up queues behind us - keeping us in constant danger as other
cars overtook us with minimal clearance and margins. When in Bulgaria, drive as
the Bulgarians. A good advice...
On the road
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The first detail that really caught our attention was the vast fields of
sunflowers. Tall
sunflowers! It was incredibly hot outside,
but we kept cool inside the car. Staying on the A1 road, we passed Sliven, Nova
Zagora, Stara Zagora (now back on the motorway), Plovdiv (2nd largest city in
Bulgaria) and Pazardzhik before turing onto highway 8 towards Kostenets,
then highway 82 through Dolna Banya, Samokov and eventually Borovets.
We struggled to find the correct exit towards Borovets, and ended up with a major detour
in the direction of Sofia before we found a place to turn around.
Finding our way
using the GPS was difficult enough. Without it, things would have gotten really,
really cumbersome. According to the guide book, Borovets is the most popular
ski-resort in Bulgaria, but there were no signposts along the main highway!
At first glance, Borovets seemed to comprise
just a couple of hotels and a small
store. A bit surprising, really - given the "most popular ski-resort in
Bulgaria" status. We stopped by the Villa Park Mountain Residence
hotel and took a look at a couple of rooms. The room quality and price was just
fine and we booked the room for 3 nights.
Our new base-camp in Borovets
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The small store across the road had the most necessary items, which included (in
random order) beer, wine, a type of
bread with cheese, cheese and ham and some fruits.
Next, we took the car to locate the Musala trailhead for the next day and
discovered a small town just around the corner! There were more hotels, souvenir shops, stores and a lot of restaurants. Hmm! And
we thought we had found the smallest ski-resort on the planet..
While enjoying a very nice
dinner at one of the restaurants, the quiet atmosphere got
replaced with noise from cars driving up and down the main road.
The cars were participating in Rally Bulgaria, which took place in Borovets this weekend.
This was apparently show-off evening.
Gradually, we got accustomed
to being tourists in Bulgaria. Anne was making good progress with Bulgarian
words and translation between Cyrillic and Latin. My focus was on
the maps and the mountains.
Borovets in July is obviously off-season, and it was a bit ... strange ... to be
two of very few guests at the hotel. The staff was keeping a "close
eye" on us, and I had to keep telling myself that they only wanted to be available in case we needed any service.
Walking the streets of Borovets
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July 9 2011 - Ascent of Musala
All times given below are local times...
The next morning, we sat course for
the gondola lift which started running 09am. And once we were airborne,
it became evident that I still got a long way to go before my vertigo is
cured. Closing my eyes helped me get past the first quarter, and I possibly
acclimated some after a while. We noticed a big mountain to the north. My first thought was that "we should
definitely try to hike that mountain". Later in the day, we learned that the mountain
is
called Vitosha and we did actually go there the very next day...
Vitosha mountain seen from the gondola
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We reached
Yastrebets (2369m - top of the gondola) at 9:45am and I was
extremely happy about having my feet placed on solid ground. We
had Musala in clear view - 5,2km to the south. It was turning out to be a
hot day, but the temperature wasn't too bad up here. The first part of
our hike was the 3,6km road to the Musala hut at approx. 2400m. The walk
was easy and we arrived there 10:38am - after passing a number of
other hikers.
The route, seen from Yastrebets
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We filled up our
water bottles at the hut, before moving on - trailing a long queue of
people. We never planned to hurry anything on this hike, but staying behind
20-30 hikers was more than we (read: I) could handle. A few minutes
later, Anne and me were in front... We
followed the trail up to the Everest shelter at approx. 2720m. Our map
says that this hut is called Ledenoto ezero Shelter, but
sources on the internet says this is wrong. All we knew was that we had no
particular business there, and continued towards our main goal.
Everest shelter and Musala
(Click for larger image)
The hike up Musala's northeast
ridge went fine and we reached the summit 12:06pm. In other words, it
took us approx. 2h:20m to get here. Musala is altogether an easy summit
to reach, although the weather can of course get quite severe at this altitude.
It felt good, but also a bit strange to be up here. The idea of going to
Bulgaria was just 4 days old! In any case - a small celebration was in order!
On top of Bulgaria
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Round trip...
After a very
disappointing lunch (the only bread we could find in Borovets this morning was the kind
served with hot-dogs...) we moved on in the direction of Malka Musala (the
smaller Musala peak). From above, the ridge looked mighty rugged and I wondered
how exactly we were supposed to get across. And while there were hundreds of hikers on
the normal route, we didn't see anyone going towards Malka Musala. Should that
be a disturbing fact? From what we had understood, this route was supposed to be quite
doable!
Towards Malka Musala
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On the way down the ridge, we passed
two hikers - taking a rest. They looked like very seasoned mountaineers and
asked us where we came from. And once our nationality was sorted out, they
decided that their break was over and followed us. But they stuck to the ridge
crest, and not the public path. God forbid...
The ridge route was
much easier than we had feared (we had to use our hands here and there for support
and balance) and reached the top
of Malka Musala at 1pm, and two other hikers suddenly turned up. There were
probably only 6 hikers on the entire ridge between Musala and Deno, and all 6
were on Malka Musala right this minute! We didn't stay for long and continued
(along with the other hikers) towards Irechek.
Towards Irechek (and Deno)
(Click for larger image)
Irechek
is just a small hump (although it looks impressive from the Musala hut) and we
stayed just a few minutes. We moved on in the direction of Deno and caught up
with the two hikers that suddenly surfaced on Malka Musala. We had a
straightforward ascent of Deno, and reached the summit 2:07pm. The
weather and the views remained impeccable.
We found the path
from the pass between Deno and Irechek, back to the Musala hut where it was
jolly good to taste fresh, running water again. We had sort of ... been
running low for a while. We returned to Yastrebets
4:03pm - approx. 6h:15m after heading out. There was no gondola queue, and we
were on our way down the mountain minutes later. And the descent was far worse
than the ascent. When they shot us out of the garage ... I thought I was going to
faint...
Countdown...
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At 4:29pm, I recorded a mental note
about having survived the gondola. We returned to the hotel and prepared for a
nice night out in of Borovets...
Next day: Cherni Vrah |