Gorgeous day hike on a small section of the Peaks of the Balkans trail

This week seems to have flown by. We probably should have stayed here two weeks! But, we've already booked our onward accommodation in the capital city of Pristina and so we head out tomorrow.

Yesterday, we made arrangements to do a hike with David and Mircie. We have a car, so they left their van at a secure parking and hopped in the car with us.

We drove about 25 kms (15 miles) from the center of Peja into the mountains. We parked in the tiny hamlet of Nečinat i Drešajt. 

Here are some pics from the drive up...

Waterfall by the side of the road.

Tunnel.

The river flows into Peja from the mountains.

Small waterfall.

They built this small viewing platform.

A sign at the side of the platform says it was built with EU money. I don't pretend to understand how these things work, because neither Kosovo (or Serbia for that matter) are part of the EU.

Mountain village.

The area where we parked has a lot of rental chalets.

It sure is a beautiful spot.

lots of great views.

We found the trail.

We were hiking on a very short section of the fairly new Peaks of the Balkans Trail. This 192 km (119 mile) long mountain trail is a circular route that goes through Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania.

The part we were on runs right along the border of Kosovo and Montenegro, and at times we were in both countries while following a route to two small lakes.

Lots of different mushrooms.

At 11:00am there is still ice on the ground.

It won't be long and there will be snow up here.

We were at about 1,500 meters (5,000') altitude. Again, we had a sunny blue sky, but it was certainly cool in the shade. But, we were working hard enough hiking up hill to keep us warm!

Heading uphill.

Mircie and Ruth.

More mushrooms and fungus.

More mushrooms.

Ruth and Mircie.

There was a forest fire in this area at some point.

Ruth and Kevin.

Beautiful day in the mountains.

Made it to the first lake.

Kevin, Ruth, Mircie, and David.

From the first lake, there were two different routes to the second lake. One was slightly longer and went around a small ridge, and one went a very steep up and down over that ridge. We decided on going around.

Just gorgeous.

And nobody else around!

Made it to the second lake.

We sat and had a snack here.

And then we decided to take the "up and over" route to get back to the first lake. It was quite a climb!

Can you see Mircie and Ruth?

As always, you can click on any photo to make it full screen.

Click again to zoom in!

I zoomed in on this cave way off in the distance.

Scenery along the way.

David, heading higher.

It was rough going. The rocks were not easy to hike on.

But eventually we made it to the top of the ridge.

David, celebrating!

Looking over the other side at the first lake.

Remember that I said it was pretty chilly in the shade?

There was still frost on the ground at 2:00pm!

Back at the first lake.

Then we had to retrace the same path back down to the car.

More mushrooms.

Our legs were pretty much done! After doing the via ferrata the day before, and then this hike... we think we are just going to take it easy today. Which is a kind of a shame because it looks like another nice day!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice price drop on this Camco Heavy Duty Adjustable Height RV Platform Step.

And in Canada...

WiFi Digital Photo Frame. Don't forget to clip the extra $10 off coupon!