My longest daily hike in Old Mountain

Greetings lovely people,

Last week I decided to do a little more intense hike with Tony. We always strive for challenging routes and this time was no different.

We had a good 3 hours drive to the exact location so did not waste any time. Half way through, the sun was rising. Excellent weather conditions awaited us.

This is the city of Karlovo. From here, we are going to take the steep road to the park and inside the forest.

So basically we are going to pass 2 Lodges on our way up and 3 Lodges on our way down. A lot of walking and memorable moments.

National Park Central Balkan with a Bear Logo

On our way up, we passed around numerous ponds, and water pools. The river was flowing really high.

We are now entering the beauty of Old Mountain Forestry. Soon we will reach our first Lodge.

We saw our first cat of the day. That meant of course we are nearing a Lodge. And so our guess was correct. The name is Lodge Hubavetz.

We did not spend too much time at the Lodge but managed to get lost while following the signs in the upper forest. We went the wrong way and then tried to take a shortcut to get back on track. We succeeded but at a cost of at least 30 minutes detour along with unnecessary steep climbings and dangerous crossings.

At last, we escaped the forest and headed to the higher vicinities with bare
hills. We managed to find a cottage used to breed all kinds of cattle in the region. Currently it was abandoned as winter is approaching and it was too cold to stay that high.

Some pictures of the surroundings. The goal is to reach the highest point. It is called Big Kupen Peak.

Because the Peak is very steep, we can´t just ascend it directly. We can but it is going to be very tiring and dangerous. Instead, we just go around and climb Peak Small Kupen. It is exactly on the left of Big Kupen and much more accessable.

Those are shots halfway up to Big Kupen. As you can see, there is a clear pathway and it is not very dangerous. Nevertheless, it is a lot of climbing as seen from the second picture.

Some brutal shots from Peak Big Kupen. It was cloudy but yet clear. Amazing weather conditions. The tower in the penultima picture is actually Peak Botev. One of the most famous in Bulgaria and the highest one in Old Mountain. Next stop will be inside the clouds. The rocky edges of Peaks Small and Big Cross. Everything is now Alpine. We have to be extra careful when traversing the region.

Before continuing our route, a group of enthusists like us also reached Big Kupen and were so happy to see us. So were we. We took pictures together and wrote our names in a notebook kept inside in a compartment just below the post itself. In this way, we will be remembered forever as one of the few who had the pleasure of feeling the magnificent views and sharing unforgetable moments in the region.

We will be having a few descends before reaching the Crosses. There is a metal rope to assist us. It is especially indispensable during winter times.

The colorful hills that we traversed just a couple of hours ago.

Here is a sneak peek of what we had to descend. And the panoramic views.

Another portion of our peak hacking. We took the northern pathway instead of risking going straight from the highest points. Basically we sliced our way through the Crosses. The last picture is Peak Big Cross. We did not summit it. There was nothing to see on top. Not even a sign. It is just an intermediate top. Nevertheless, very dangerous.

We are witnessing the sun going down with its whole beauty behind.

Some of the regions in distance have a little bit of snow caps. It is so invigorating.

It is so breathtaking and captivating. But we need to descend already as we have good 5 hours until the city of Karlovo. It was going to be a very long walk down passing by Lodges.

We got to Karlovo by midnight and home by 3 o'clock in the morning. Definitely a very crazy hike. 48 km of pure maddness. And we loved every bit of it.