Saturday was a day of rest for us. After a long, hot week, we finally got a little rain in the city. Unfortunately I missed it because I was on another "adventure" in the mountains. Big Bogdan and I drove for 5 hours with another friend, Mihai, in order to climb the highest peak in Romania. The last 40 kilometers of the drive was us a beautiful dirt road that paralleled a rushing river. The road was in pretty good shape except for one spot that had a major river flowing down the center of it. With some prayer and good driving, we made it over that hurdle. The road was blocked by a large avalanche near the end. We decided that we had not driven all morning for nothing so we parked the truck and climbed over the blockage.

Bogdan thought that is was only 1 kilometer to the trail so we started on the walk with much enthusiasm. Two hours later we found the trailhead located at the bottom of the mountain. In the valley sat a shepherd's house and there was an amazing waterfall coming off the cliff. We started hiking toward the top. Because we were starting later in the day than planned, we set the goal of getting to the plateau below the mountain peak rather than going all the way to the top. Had the road not been blocked, we would have reached the top without any problems.

It was a hard climb, straight up in parts, but the resulting valley we reached was amazing. All the stresses and worries of the world slipped away as I sat in that high point marveling at the beauty. We could see Moldoveanu Peak above us. Through the valley ran a picture perfect stream.

After an hour of enjoying the scene, we started down the mountain. We reached the road after an hour and then headed for the car. We thought the walk to the car would be a lot shorter than the walk to the mountain because it was downhill. We were wrong. It was still a two hour walk. As we drove out of the mountains, it started getting dark. We made it back to Bucharest at 2 AM. It was a long day but it was worth every minute of it.