How we did a winter traverse of the Vrancea Mountains.

In the beginning I wanted to name this narrative “Getting into the cold air”, because it was a winter trip, made in between Christmas and New Year. We experienced temperatures at a range starting at  – 9°C to – 3°C.  When I got back home a friend of mine asked me how was it there on the trip. I gave her the answer that it was a beautiful excursion, however a little cold.

Actually we experienced not too heavy winter conditions in the Vrancea Mountains. There were mild temperatures and less snow than usual, at least for this time of the year. We did not need any snowshoes or skis, and I had no need for my warmer, second pair of gloves, which I carried on my pack in the duration of the trip. Our last joint winter trip to the Nemira Mountains was far colder. Three weeks after we returned home, the central and Eastern Europe swept a wave of really chill air coming from north-east. Before a cell of high pressure air, causing that cold weather period, stabilized itself north of the Czech Republic, we experienced a heavy snowfall in central and eastern Europe mountains. In the Vrancea Mountains had fallen a lot snow, burying whole cities and villages under profound layer of that cold thing.

Our plan was to traverse the Vrancea Mountains from the west to the east, exactly in reverse direction than we did in last august. As I said before, in this way there is a lot more diversity in the landscape than in north-south or vice versa traverse. The Vrancea Mountains are formed of many isolated ridges, with long intervening valleys, and a single journey never brings you to all important places. We always chat about a future trip there.

To be able to go to the Vrancea Mountains more than a single time, you need to fall in love with them. Afterwards you can feel a desire to be together with those mountains. This noun (mountains), belongs to the feminine gender, and there is no doubt that we both fell in love with them. Although the Vrancea Mountains are not undressed, almost naked, likewise a fashion model. Its beauty is more inner one rather than external one; simply said, it is not exposed for everyone to see. Its forested ridges are intertwined with alpine meadows, which are far in between. To admire its incredible views, you have to walk over great distances, simply said, you need to make an effort to discover its beauty. It‘s not just like walking on the Piatra Craiului Ridge, where there are incredible views on every side all the time.

The distance which we had to walk over wasn‘t great and we expected, that in winter conditions, it would take us four days to complete the traverse. Thus after having finished with the Vrancea trip, we would be able to join our friends for the New Year’s Eve trip, elsewhere in the mountains of Romania. We didn’t plan it to be longer than four days of being out, because there is an equation, which says that the heavier pack you carry, the  slowlier you walk. So planning it for five or more days would probably turn it into a week­-long trip, which would be unworkable for us. I had to get back home on the 2nd of January.

Day the 1^st- The journey begins at foothills.

We met with Ioan in Braşov on the 26^th of December at about 8:10 am. My train was scheduled to arrive at 8:20, but arriving earlier we were able to catch the train fo Sfântu Gheorghe at 8:15 am. There we changed the train again, took a downline to Zăbala station, where we finally got off at on the west side of the Vrancea Mountains, north of town of Covasna.

 Typical wooden gate with dovecotes on the west side of the Vrancea Mountains. Covasna county.

There we met with a local guy who gave us useful information how to get onto a subsidiary ridge, which would get us on the other subsidiary ridge which connected with yet another, higher ridge, which finally was attached to the main ridge.

Our packs were disturbingly heavy, mine was about 20 kg and Ioan’s weighed about 18 kg. I carried a tent and a multi fuel stove Coleman Peak 1, which I got bought at Alaska 12 years ago. Before the trip I suggested Ioan, to bring his MSR Mini Rocket stove and a gas cartridge along as a backup. We stopped at local shop to buy some bread and garlic, just to add more weight to our packs.

The Zăbala commune was mostly inhabited by Székely people who speak Hungarian language. There was fortified church built in the 16^th century in the center of the commune and entrances into the courts were made through carved wooden gates with dovecotes, which are characteristic for the Székely area.

 Beside a fortified church, Zăbala commune.

 Typical wooden gate with dovecotes across the street, Zăbala commune.

On the hill just above the village, from where we had a nice view of the area, we made a short stop to eat something. The landscape was snowy here as opposed to situation on the east side of the mountains. After a while I could feel a little cold from staying still. The temperature was about -6°C. The visibility was poor; we could barely see the bigger ridge onto which we needed to get via the smaller ridge on which we just were standing.

 On narow trail leading through young forest.

There were no tourist markings on our trail, so we just went where we thought the trail was correct. After a while we enter a forested area. The forests were clear cut in the past and now there were only young spruce trees. At one moment the trail bifurcated. We chose the trail leading to the right, which proved to be a mistake little later. We had to walk through thick groves totally covered in snow, which wetted us little. On the way we saw a brown bear’s track, which reminded us that we were heading into wild area. We took left and soon we were again on the second trail, where walking was much easier.

We gradually climbed up into the clouds. The landscape was enveloped in soft mist and everything was still and silent. On cleared areas, out of the fog materialized only trees, while we were nearing them.

Ioan was suspecting there that we already got onto the bigger ridge, leading from Covasna, where there should be tourist markings to find. 

 Tourist marking, finally!

Really, a while later we saw first blue dot on a dead inclined stump. It was not always easy to follow these markings, because marks were far in between. Sometimes we had to split to locate correct way. The trail was climbing a long way, one time through old grove of spruce forest, at another stretch on empty area. In the mist it was impossible to judge our position. Having had no map for this first part of the trip, the only orientation point we had, was the length of the time we were on the ridge.

 Brown bear's track.

It was already past 4 pm and the light level was falling where we emerged onto an inclined terrain with towering forest on one side and open leaning space on the other side. This place Ioan remembered from our last summer trip. Here we got on a trail which got us to hut called Canton lui Sf. Ştefan, if I remember it well. The hut slowly materialized out of the mist and we knew that the sheepfold where we wanted to get to was not excessively far away from there, and that we would probably arrive there before dark.

The trail was level and it brought us onto gently sloping plateau where we found the sheepfold quickly. Luckily there was still some daylight at about 5 pm, which allowed us to spot the shelter through the thick mist. If we were in my home time zone, it would be dark until 4:30 pm on Christmas, and spotting the sheepfold would not be possible. Understand you me, we had no GPS, we had only a compass and a map for navigating us through the green ocean of forests in the Vrancea Mountains.

At the first building.

 Building a tent inside a sheepfold.

It was 5 pm and it was dark and cold. The day was not over. At first we decided to overnight in the rickety wooden cabin, through which the wind was howling. There were no beds, indeed. We could lie down on the snow-free frozen ground. To get warmer and escape the wind we decided to erect a tent inside the cabin.

When we stopped walking we instantly felt how cold it was. My fingers went dumb. We added more layers of clothes on our bodies to keep us warm at -9°C. Because I was wearing technical long-sleeved underwear on my torso, I felt any problem related to humidity in the cold. I had only to add an extra layer on it, to balance for the loss of generating enough body heat by movement. I put an extra trousers on my legs, too. Trekking boots and socks I was wearing were dry, so my feet felt perfectly okay.

After that we had to acquire enough water for drinks and food. Since water sources were frozen and buried under 30 cm of snow, the only possibility to obtain water was to thaw the snow on our stove. At first the heater worked. Later, I had to refill it with new gasoline. When I started to push it’s pump in order to increase pressure inside the tank after the refill, a serious gasoline seepage occurred just around its regulator. I had to fix it! At first I thought that I could easily tighten the regulator, after removing the generator, by screwing it a little way in. But because of the design of the valve it proved to be unworkable! Was the heater inrepairable on the very first day of the trip?! No way! I rescued the situation by winding my dental floss around the worn thread and screw it back into its original position. Then I added back the generator. I stupidly make some small hurt on its needle in the process, but to my relief the stove was operable again. Indeed the generator defect caused the total failure of the heater when I got back home and tried to activate it. But this was a different tale, with no influence on the current Vrancea trip.

The repair took about an hour. In the meantime Ioan prepared food for himself on his gas heater. I remember that we went to sleep around the 9 o’clock. I filled my thermos with hot tea in order to have something to drink on the next day. In general in winter you get more busy then in summer. Everything is more hard to do and usually less comfy.

When we went to sleep and lied down we quickly discovered that the frozen ground was not a perfect place to settle on. The cold was penetrating our matresses and we had to laid on our sides and changed our positions frequently. Otherways I felt boiling in my down sleeping bag. Inside the tent the temperature was comfortable, the only problem was that cold coming up from the soil.

After two hours of sleep we both woke up a talked for a while. Then we emerged into sleep again, each of us with his own feelings.

Day the 2^nd – Heading into the tallest part of the mountains via the Bâsca Mare valley.

The day dawned foggy and cold. All was silent outside. We were producing the only sounds. The heater worked properly and after breakfast we packed up and set off. Outside we took some images of the sheepfold lost in the mist. I put on my snowshoes, because of deep snow. But walking was not comfortable with them, so I downed them after an hour of walking. 

Leaving the sheepfold.

Ioan had better knowledge of the area, so he invented a twist on the normal route for the main crest. Instead of continuing on the subsidiary ridge until we would get to Vârfu Lujerului, passing through Poarta Vănturilor and then finally climbing to Vărfu Lacauţi, we opted for a descent to the valley of Bâsca Mare River. This route was more difficult, and for us more interesting. We wanted to try a new route on Vf. Lacauţi (1777 m).

At first we walked directly to the east, via the same trail, where we walked on in last August, though in opposite direction. At one place we took to the right on a secondary forest road which was gradualy descending into the valley. Just before we got to the the valley bottom, the sun appeared for a while. Ioan took advantage of his new set of Cokin ND Grad filters with Cokin filter holder. To his happiness, the resulting images hold details both in the shadowed snow and bright skies as well.

When we got to the bottom of the vale we followed a tributary of the Bâsca Mare River. Ioan took a drink directly from the torrent. I guessed that temperature of running water in winter could oscillate around 4°C, thus being „much warmer“ then the water carried in a bottle on the pack, which was close to sub-zero point. The water temperature oscillates with the season, but never gets near to freezing point even in the depth of winter. The water freezes on its surface only. I am familiar with it, because in our mountains, where the climate is very similar to that in the Vrancea Mountains, average anual water temperature is about 4,5°C. At summer it can reach 6°C at its highest, though never drops below 4°C in winter.

Ioan drinking from a stream.

Following the tributary for a while we got on the bank of the Bâsca Mare River. We still were out of the area shown on our map, and thus we had no idea whether we should go up or down the valley so that we could to arrive on marked route towards Vf. Lacauţi. Soon we found a locked wooden house, a property of local forestry department. There was no one around, whom we could ask for directions, so we split and went in opposite directions to explore for a sign of any trail up the peak.

I went for about 300 m up the valley, just to se the forest road diappearing behind a bend of the valley. I returned and searched for Ioan, who went down. A while later I heard a noise which seemed out of place here: a sound of the engine! A car was aproaching! It stopped by the house. The man in the car was a forest worker on inspection trip and we talked for a while. He wanted to turn around a little way more down, but seeing fresh human footprints in the snow aroused his curiosity and he went after us, stopping his car at a place where we have left our packs.

He told us to follow the forest road down for a kilometer and then turn left into a side valley, where another wooden house is situated. From there starts a marked trail to Lacauţi Peak (blue dot). The climb shouldn’t be longer then 1 and a half an hour. This time would probably converts to 2 hour’s climb with ours heavy packs, we thought.

At first we walked comfortably down the road. After only half a kilometer we encountered with another road coming down from the left. Was this our route? No way, the man clearly said one kilometer. We continued farther down, but to no avail. We descended more then a kilometer, finding any sign af a road. Our route must be that one higher up in the valley, we thought and returned there, climbing the steep road all the way back.

Following the secondary road, we found a house, described by the man in the car. We stopped there for a while, took a drink and ate something to obtain calories needed for the upcoming climb. We were eager to climb to the top, because we suspected that there could be clear sky up there. I estimated an altitude of the bottom of the valley somewhere in between 1100 m and 1200 m. The Lacauţi Peak has elevation of 1777 m, so the climb should not be bigger then some 600 m of level difference, which translates into two hours of climbing with heavy rucsacks and one and a half an hour without a load.

 Forest lodge below Lacauti Peak.

We enjoyed the climb far beyond our expectations! The trail was well marked and the steepness was easy to conquer because of serpentines, and just because there was beautiful forest all around us. The higher we went the more beautiful the forest was. In the upper third od the ascend blue spots in the sky appeared here and there, furthermore there was only blue colour above us. The clouds remained in the valley. 

Forest below Lacauti Peak.

 Blue sky appeared...

 Forest detail.

Forest below Lacauti Peak.

 Cross below Lacauti Peak.

Suddenly we stepped on a forest road, snow on its surface showed signs of passing a snowcat through here. We knew we were aproaching the meteorogical station, situated directly atop Vf. Lacauţi. Ioan recognized a section of the road, which leads from village of Comandau, some 20 km away from here. We both knew, from previous visit, that we have to aproach the station carefully, because of angry dogs, who always are around the station. On the last uphill we heard dogs barking and rapidly they were around us. There were three of them. One was big and white, the other two were smaller and darker in colour. The Big White approached us closely barking and snarling at us. Ioan beated him over its nose with the trekking pole. To no avail. Maybe the Big White remembered Ioan as being the guy, who sprayed at him with a pepper spray on his first visit here roughly a year ago. Ioan remembered that the spray had no effect whatsoever. I was carefull to avoid almost waist-deep snow at the margin of the trail, because it was unsafe to stay jammed in the snow in the presence of those beasts. We managed to get close to the station to have a rest. Luckily an owner turned out and tied up the dogs. We were safe for now!

Meteorologic station on Lacauti Peak.

Goru seen from Lacauti Peak.

Coza masiff seen from  Lacauti Peak.

After an hour of rest on balmy sun rays we took pictures in all direstions, especially in north direction where the Coza masiff was rising out of the valleys. We both felt a special attachment to Mount Coza, after the last summer adventure. Luckilly, I didn’t know at the moment that I was going to miss an opportunity to spent a New Year‘s Eve there!

                                                            Leaving Lacauti for Goru.

 Looking in south direction from Lacauti Peak.

It took us less then one hour to get to Şaua Gorului, following the new markings on our descent, did by Ioan and other members on „Remarking action“ which took place here in the last June. The descent with views over Bâsca Mică Valley brought back sweet memories of last August trip, where we were picking up blueberries right here on a hot summer day.

Basca Mica valley.

At winter  in Saua Gorului.

 Arrival at Stanele din Goru.

The sunset below Goru.

At about 4:15 pm we arrived at a place called Stânele din Goru, although there is only a single sheepfold in the area. The word stânele is a plural and it means sheepfolds in romanian language. Originally we planned to get farther and thus closer to Giurgiu Peak, our next destination. Because of the one-hour rest atop Lacauţi Peak, now it was too late to continue past Goru Peak.

Taking photographs at sunset below Goru.

Stanele din Goru at sunset.

Trees on fire at sunset.

Goru at sunset.

Alpenglow on Goru.

We could not make better time plan, because we arrived there when a sunset was only minutes ahead. The sunset was at 4:35 pm on that day! So immediately after arrival we put off our rucksacks we wentured out to take sunset pictures, at first without tripods, and a while later, after the light level had decreased, we started to shoot with our cameras attached to our tripods. Ioan mounted ND grad filter in the filter holder attached to his camera lens and hurried out to test it. At first he was not sure about metering the light. He tried to take reading from the ground only, then tried another method. With a digital camera the learning curve is short, because you have instant feedback from camera‘s histogram. With a film camera one would get into a real trouble here, if he or she had no previous experience. I mounted the ND Grad filter on my camera, too. I usually meter such a scenes directly with the filter already set in the correct position. I found out that taking exposure readings is easy, because the filter reduces the contrast in the scene.

After watching the alpenglow on Goru peak, we both started to take pictures at dusk. With filters we were able to get details in dark foregound and on brighter skies at a single image. Without filters you can’t get good results, unless you get multiple exposures and have enough experiences with post-processing in the computer. Taking a picture with the filter may safe you from spending too much time working on images back at home. The light after sunset is usually purple under clear skies, and the magenta cast shows on resulting images as well. This purple light is refleced from the sky. It is quite obvious on images taken with longer exposure time, because the light accumulates on the camera’s sensor. With naked eye you can see far less violet in the landscape, because you are seeing only actual level of light, since the human retina is not able to accumulate light in the same way as camera’s sensor does. Human visual system also constantly compensates for the change of daylight colours, thus is difficult for the photographer to jugde the true hues in the resulting landscape photograph. Since the sensor is an extension of photographers vision, he has to fight the problem with a sophisticated tool, called white balance, which is camera’s equivalent of human’s visual constancy ability. We are seeing a colour in relation with other colours, so that we are able to make a proper sense of the world around us. If we want to keep the snow in foreground more white in the photograph, we had to increase the colour temperature in camera’s setting. Ioan was using colour temperature over 7000°K, which he set up manually. I kept shooting with daylight balance set for shadow mode. At the end we both ended with purple snow in our photographs. Some people may say, that those colours could not be there. I know they were there, in addition the camera enhanced them beyond a naturaly looking level, because of accumulation of light coming from the purple end of the colour spectrum. On the other hand try to explain that fact to non-photographers!

Alpenglow on Goru.

 At dusk below Goru.

Moon above the mountain meadow, Stanele din Goru.

Light show above Stanele din Goru.

Stanele din Goru at dusk.

When the best light was gone, Ioan went to check out the spring and I went to find out some wooden planks with which I wanted to fix the bed inside the sheepfold. There was only one place on the bench, which we installed inside on our last August trip. Back then I slept on the ground, which I wanted to avoid at any price in winter. I extracted a panel from a ramshackle wooden box by a nearby corral, which was no longer in use. I pulled it inside the sheepfold and had the bed fixed before Ioan returned back from the spring. We had comfortable beds now, but water source was unusable. Ioan discovered the stream to be solid frozen, so he returned without any water, but with a beautiful picture, showing a nice ice cone below the trough.

Wooden box from where I extracted a panel to fix our makeshift bed.

Peacefull evening at stanele din Goru.

Then we melted snow and made hot drinks and food on our stoves. My gasoline stove worked properly! It took a lot of time to liquefy powder snow and we had to be at rest in the process. We put more layers of clothes on us, but this time we felt much more comfortable then on the previous evening, even though the temperature was about the same. There was no wind this evening and skies were clear. After dinner we ventured out with our cameras mounted on tripods and started with night photographs. We made many several-minute exposures in each direction. To make pictures more interesting we put light on trees within our frames using our head torches. This method is called „light painting.“ My longest exposures were about 5 minutes, I was afraid of draining out my battery. I had only three batteries along with me for a week long trip, with no chance to recharge them. I was surprised how bright the stars were on that moonless night. I couldn’t tell out the Big dipper, even though I located the North Star. The constelation even didn’t show on resulting photographs. I have never seen so „much“ stars; I don‘t say „many“ because they were uncountable. Plus I have been to Himalaya, with much clearer skies then here in Europe! 

Stanele din Goru at night.

The most serious problem I encountered during the hours of night photography at altitude of over 1550 m, was fogging the lens. Even though there seemed to be not much humidity in air, from time to time a veil of vapor passed through the plain below Goru Peak. After a couple of exposures I needed to wipe out my foggied lens. The resulting images were good enough just for the method being used. For better results more advanced knowledge is reqiured. The pictures we took on that night are only the basics of night or astro-photography, as it is called. Long-exposure images usually suffer from the digital noise. I have just red about combining multiple shorter (30 sec) exposures into a single frame, thus avoiding those noise problems. Having had no Photoshop I learned about startrail program, which can combine together multiple images into a single one. I downloaded it from the web, it’s for free, and I plan to make a special trip for the night photography soon, just to see if I can improve a little on it.

Constelation of Orion above the shoulder of Goru Peak.

 Storybook atmosphere at Stanele din Goru.

Stanele din Goru with northern skies in background. The sky seemingly rotates around Polaris.

Our night-photography session ended at about 8:30 pm. We were cold enough and were ready to crawl inside our sleeping bags. Because of gentle breeze blowing inside through a glassless window opening, we had to put plastic cover over it. The room became a little „warmer“ then. We didn’t forget to carefully close the door, because we were in a location frequented by brown bears. It was winter, however we saw bear’s footprints twice on every day! And donť forget that we observed and photographed a bear on Goru Peak in last August.

 Our kitchen at stanele din Goru.

Our beds at stanele din Goru.


To be continued!!!