Tihu Peak – Calimani Mountains
While last year our treks mostly included adventuring through the Western Carpathians, this year we opted for the Eastern part of the majestic mountains, because it was simply closer and thus easily reachable. We returned to Calimani Mountains the most (see Colibita Lake), and in July we climbed the Southern part of the mountains and got to Tihu Peak.
Tihu Peak / Varful Tihu blaze
The journey started a little rocky (literally) because of the bad road we had to go on until we reached the blue dot marking our path. It was a bumpy forestry road and we were quite impressed of our small but fierce car’s (Peugeout 106) ability to “climb”. Once we saw the first blue dots, we got out of the car and continued our way on foot through the valley of the Ilva stream.
Ilva stream / Valea Ilvei
Ilva stream / Valea Ilvei
At one moment, when the stream got pretty small, the blaze lead us deeper into the forest, where we discovered some tasty berries to chew on while walking. Although it was a hot summer day, I thought we would be mostly moving through the forest, so I didn’t put any sunscreen on (huge mistake), which I ended up regretting later, getting one of the worst burns ever. Huge lesson for the future!
Calimani Mountains through the forest
Once we got out of the forest, I immediately heard dogs barking. Although my favorite animals are dogs, the shepherd-dogs which guard the herd aren’t really friendly with humans who tend to step on their territories. Thankfully, the shepherd was home and called the dogs off immediately. The shepherd lived with his son in a tiny wooden cabin, with an impressive herd of sheep, about 15 cows and 12 horses. As we were walking past the animals which were scattered along the path we had to follow, I couldn’t help but have the feeling that I was being watched. Yes, by the animals.
path through horses – Calimani Mountains
After we left the cabin behind, we had about 20-25 more minutes of trekking, which proved to be pretty steep. We passed a huge rock and suddenly, the whole Calimani was under our feet. It was an amazing feeling how the landscape opened in front of us and the view was amazing.
view from Tihu Peak 1799 meters
After 5 minutes of breathing in the surroundings in the silence, some of the members of the mountain rescue arrived (they were putting up new directional signs) and they were kind enough to take a victory-shot of us with the peak-sign:
Tihu Peak – Varful Tihu 1799 m
We had a few sandwiches after the hike, right next to the peak sign, and couldn’t get our eyes off the beautiful sight.
view from Tihu Peak / priveliste de pe varful Tihu
view from Tihu Peak / priveliste de pe varful Tihu
Hope you liked the post about a small mountain in our pretty little country! Stay tuned for a new article earlier next week with a brand-new country! And have a nice weekend :)!
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I went to Calimani NP two weeks ago and it already had snow and ice there. Very beautiful!
I would do much more hiking in Romania, if it wasn’t for the scary dogs. 🙁
I agree. We always hike just the two of us and even though I am not alone I’m still scared to death of shepherd dogs (though I’ve always had a dog growing up, have one now, and love dogs generally). They’re just too big, bark too loud and the thought that they could kill a bear if they wanted to always haunts me whenever I see one… In the wintertime though there are not so many on the mountains.