Friday, Aug 31: Retezat Mountains (Lake Bucura – Bucura Peak - Carnic)

I left camp at 12:30 with all the gear. This was my last days in these mountains. The original plan was to exit the park from the west side. There was a trail marked with yellow stripe and a red circle, which was supposed to split into two trails. Anyway, I somehow missed it, and ended up on the yellow strip trail, which was the one I used to arrive to lake Bucura the first day. The first part was a hike up, which was fairly strenuous, especially in light of the heavy pack, and so I decided to simply backtrack out of the park towards Carnic the way I entered. But, after a little while I realized I could use another track (the red stripe) to get back to Carnic so as to make the hike more interesting. This red stripe track intersected the yellow track. So, I had to backtrack a bit. Next thing I knew I ended up at Bucura Peak (2433m). At least the views were nice. The path I took was by no means optimal, rather it was a nearly circular one and after some 4 hours of walking I ended up about 45 min from where I started…

Anyway, I then continued towards Pietrele cabin (on the way to Carnic) using the blue stripe track and met a group of people near a lake whole name I forget (????). I continued with them to their cabin, which was on the way. I got the train schedule from them and then continued on. Unfortunately, it started raining and since my boots are crap that resulted in an in-shoe flood… There was a shortcut through the woods that could have taken and decided not too as it was getting dark. I arrived at Carnic at 20:30 right as it got dark, which made this a long 8 hour day. It was nice to have a shower!