The Carpathian Mountains are Europe’s longest mountain range, and the wildest part is in Romania. Much of these highlands is known as Transylvania, which much of the the world only has ever heard of, if it has at all, as where Dracula supposedly is from.
But the reality is much cooler than the movies. The Romanian section of the Carpathian Mountain arc, a curve south and then east some 900 kilometers (600 miles) as the bat flies, contains pretty much Europe’s last substantial wilderness. Eagles, Alpine lakes, groomed trails in some places, nothing but unmarked paths elsewhere, a healthy brown bear population, cheap hotels, castles – the more I read about Transylvania and the sweep of the Carpathian Mountains cutting through there, the more I couldn’t understand, why isn’t this place a classic through-hike route?
Certainly, in the southern, E-W leg of the Carpathians, a/k/a the Transylvanian Alps, hiking has been a popular sport for decades and there are maps and mountains shelters and manicured trails in several national parks. But hike across Romania, from end to end? On foot? As nearly as I can tell, it’s such a weird idea it may well be no one has tried it.
This, I explained to my bosses in the news business, would be a fine opportunity for me, a reporter working in East Europe, to do some bang-up regional journalism focusing on sexy issues like sustainable eco-tourism, social problems in one of Europe’s more depressed provinces, conflict between Romania’s timber and dairy industries, and of course, if at all possible, an exclusive interview with that fanged guy in the cape.
(Ok, so you probably can’t take Dracula’s picture, cameras use mirrors. But I could ask him, what happens to his clothes when he turns into a bat? And who’s his dentist? And isn’t targeting women in low-cut outfits, actually a form of sexual harassment? These are things the reading public needs to know!)
My employers, generous and indulgent beyond any expectation, agreed a series of feature stories filed from Romania’s less-traveled hinterlands would in theory be a fine idea – but I did have to write the stories I promised. So I promised, and suddenly I was frantic: How does one hike the Transylvania Trail? I don’t think Discovery Channel has done a show on that…
FOR THE RECORD: There is no such thing as the "Transylvania Trail", I thought that name up myself. Still, it it sounds pretty good I think.
There are of course some down sides to making such a walk as an (at the moment anyway) gainfully-employed media professional. All the junk I need to do my job – laptop, power converters, a camera, lenses, phone – I will have to hump, along “normal” hiker gear. I can’t take as much time as I want, as there is an office I need to get back to on schedule.
Unless I do my homework or find some time and energy to type after a day’s walking, my rest days won’t be so restful. I’ll have to knock out a pretty news story, Photoshop the pix, and send it in to be edited, all on my day off; and Romania is a place I’ve never been and I don’t happen to speak the language, so just how am I supposed to find broadband?
But the payoff, I hope, will be worth it. I’ll be finding my way along a path less taken, resupplying in mountain villages, navigating by Red Army maps, and figuring out water as I go. The route goes through the Rodna, Bucegi, Faragas, Retezat, and Parang Mountains.
I’m a sucker for exotic names. "Boola Boola!"
Stefan Korshak is a reporter and blogger at Trail Journals. You can read his blog entries at http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=311030
