De Wilderness and de Bears

After reading about the Transfagarasan mountain pass being only opened in the summer months, we decided Napoleon was up for the challenge. Great road to drive, never got into fourth gear at all, mainly second and third with full lock on some of the hairpin bends. We had planned to park at the cable car car-park (park n’ ride essentially) and take the easy way up to 2100m. It was thronged with lots of people and cars who had made the effort to get up early, unlike us. So we battled on up the hills, my forearms shifting up and down the gears like mad. Then after 1km we saw a space where we decided to park up and maybe camp for FREE. The Budget Master was very happy with this idea. So with map, food and a trail in mind, we lazily meandered back to the cable car and flew up to. At the top there was a small glacial lake, with lots of folk having bbqs and picnics, admiring the vistas of the highest ridges in the Carpathian mountains. We ate our hang sandwiches and made for the ridge. We picked a walk that was arduous at the start but which descended the last two thirds of the route. After ten minutes we lost the trail, slightly ominous, but found it again by that great invention of stealth and espionage – binoculars. We continued to make our way up to the heady heights of 2400m with magnificent views all around. Then we again lost the trail on our descent, so perhaps slightly foolishly we split up, one with the camera, the other with the binoculars in search of the elusive trail mark. After 3 minutes I began to imagine the wolves, lynx, brown bear nibbling at one of us. So I scuttled back over the ridge and found Laura. Then next minute I saw the trail mark several hundred metres away from where we were. I had to take a photo to make sure. Alas eventually this trail lead to nowhere helpful. It became clear that the trail was no longer in use as we came across 2m high pine trees densely packed together!! So began the exercise and possible new sport of tree walking!! Essentially we were walking roughly 10m per min max, and that was with full throttle on the adrenaline tanks. I still had half a mind on the local carnivores and the setting sun. Looking at the map only served to increase our anxiety about getting back in one piece. Finally we made it into a larger forest with no tree walking required. I hurriedly found a stick to fight the Bears with! and so began the task of persuading our exhausted muscles to run and dash through the forest. We made up our own trail at this stage, which ended with a view of the road from 20 m above, so I scouted the ridge, lost the torch, found the torch and then found a safe route down!! We kept imagining wolves watching us from the forest edges, a trick of the imagination that never transpired into reality.
We stayed at our spot with the company of others, for some nights, and on the last night we saw a Brown Bear! He was scavenging from the bin in front of our van. As it was about 4am we were unable to make out much definition, but it was an exciting 15 minutes. It was difficult to resist the temptation of turning on the van’s headlights or taking a photo as that would have scared him off, but also offered a better view of what he looked like. But we didn’t.
We continued our journey over the mountain pass and into Wallachia – S.Romania and then back towards Brasov.