UKC

Has anyone been to the Accursed Mountains in Albania for mountaineering or long easier adventurous multi-pitch?

Some amazing looking ridgelines which surely have a lot of potential, but can only find limited info online about hiking in the area. Also looks potentially quite chossy .

Any contacts or advice very appreciated. Thanks!

George

In reply to 67hours:

I just had a look on Google because I was intrigued by the name, and found this SummitPost page which gives some background but not much in the way of specific routes:

https://www.summitpost.org/prokletije/routes/p-153694

There seem to be several different names for the area so it might be worth searching on these for more info. 

In reply to 67hours:

Nothing too over the top but I have been there and would highly recommend Karanfili. There is definitely choss but no more than some areas of the alps in my honest opinion. It's the kind of place where if you feel comfortable, you can do a huge amount of questing and exploration.

It is an incredibly beautiful place and I would recommend going there even if you don't end up finding anything worthwhile. Also super cheap which is a bonus.

In reply to Bob Kemp:

Thanks Bob. Yes, there are a few summitpost pages, also a German topo for a single route I found. But not much! I got inspired initially from the photos in this BBC piece actually: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230103-the-peak-of-the-balkans-trail-e...

In reply to slawrence1001:

Thanks, super! Were you there to climb or just explore?

Karanfili is just over the border into Montenegro I think? But it does look amazing, really visually distinctive peak.

In reply to 67hours:

Bit of both really, I was a bit of a beginner when we went over so didn't manage anything too complex but did a good amount of technical scrambling.

Yes just over in Montenegro but worth the visit in my opinion, as is the town of Gusinje. It is quite different from most mountain environments I have been in so definitely worth doing a good bit of walking to get accustomed before trying anything more committing, but there is 100% a huge amount of potential. 

In reply to 67hours:

It does look fabulous. Did you see the bits about land mines - somewhere in the SummitPost stuff I think?

In reply to 67hours:

if your on Facebook you could try  the rock climbing in Albania group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2215057435458864 

In reply to 67hours:

That does look stunning, I hope it's kept on the low down. I've a book in my to read list The Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver, he travelled there as it opened briefly after the end of the Hoxha regime.

If you do go i'd love to hear about it (on the low down of course😁).

In reply to ecrinscollective:

Thanks for the Facebook tip! Will go take a look now 

In reply to pasbury: Just reading the reviews for the book here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1765574.The_Accursed_Mountains). Wow. Perhaps I’ll need to read it for research now! If we make it I’ll try to walk the line between the publicity and discretion you’re asking for 😅.

p.s. landmines!! I hadn’t read that yet Bob no. But I’ve travelled in Croatia before so it’s not an entirely unfamiliar objective hazard

In reply to 67hours:

Can't help you with proper climbing objectives there, as we only hiked in the mountains and at most did a bit of scrambling up a few peaks.

Though you might still find some of these general points useful:

• Screw‑in gas canisters were pretty impossible to find in Albania (maybe except Tirana, haven't tried there) and pretty hard to get in Montenegro. There is a big home supplies store (Okov) in Podgorica that sells them, ask for the Bazar shopping mall.
• It's dry karst country, so plan for water sources appropriately to season and carry more. Most streams up there are pretty seasonal and flow completely hidden under the dry stream bed til you get way lower in elevation during summer, so look for the rare springs (usually near a shepherd's hut) on the map or shaded snowfields.
• Saw a few horned vipers, but they were cool. The worst wildlife were the biting midges (!) at some alpine lakes, though only in the evening. Nothing like Scotland, but still a surprise.
• Might want to get a mountain border crossing permit (online or at the Gusinje police station) even if you plan only staying on one side. From some more remote places esp. in Albania it's much easier to descend the nearest path to town on the other side of the border if you have some emergency or just a change of plans. Police didn't give us any trouble about crossing the unmarked border in a medical emergency (choss strike), but it might save some bureaucratic hassle later ("entry stamp but no exit stamp?").
• Enjoy the food. Buredžinicas, yum!

In reply to 67hours:

My experience in Croatia was that a lot of paths were cleared but straying off the paths was not recommended. Uncleared areas are marked. I have a feeling that rather less signing and mine clearance work will have been done in such a wild area. I'm sure you'll be very careful though!

In reply to Frank R.:

Thanks Frank - really interesting to hear. Whereabouts did you go scrambling up, would still be curious to know!

I think we're planning to take a multifuel stove just to be safe. I don't know about the vipers, but I've heard the scorpions can be painful too. And great tip about border permits, will research that now.

In reply to 67hours:

We were walking in the Accursed mountains last September. Flew to Montenegro and walked around the Gusinje area. Absolutely beautiful and very empty. Lots of soaring rock. 

We also wild camped on Zla Kolata which was great and used butane gas cylinders bought in the country for cooking.

The only downside was I came back to UK with a terrible bacterial stomach infection - all the symptoms of giardia and was ill for around 2 weeks. I normally have great illness resiience but i think I got it from drinking unpasteurised goats milk at a shepherds hut.