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Retezat Mountains - has anyone been there?
Anyone has any info about the place?
Seems like there's very little on the www about the place.

In a text briefly mentioning these mountains I came across this sentence:
It was on the evening of St. Ilie (master of storms and rains)
Sounds interesting.
Anyone has some more info about St. Ilie?

http://maps.retezat.ro/
Never been there, seem to be the oldest NP in Romania, highest point Vf. Peleaga 2508.8 m

It was on the evening of St. Ilie (master of storms and rains)

St. Elias. In neighbour Slav countries also known as Sveti Ilija. Check SP pages of Biokovo and Peljesac-Sv.Ilija

I've never been there, but the area seems to be relatively often visited by mountain hikers from Poland and Czech Republic, not counting Romanians of course...as far as I know it is a really beatiful and wild range (3rd highest in Romania) with wonderful postglacial landscape full of lakes. Retezat granite peaks are rather easily accessible.

Best points to start exploration are towns of Hateg(north) and Petrosani(east), both accessible by train communication.

Many beatiful photos presenting beauty of Retezat mtns, are to find at www.alpinet.org in section "fotografii", just inscribe "retezat" in search window.

http://www.romaniatravel.com/media/pict ... etezat.jpg

Cheers

Tomek

ok. been there, done that.Retezat has a radial strucure, the middle point beeing represented by Bucura Lake,because that is the place from which most of the routes start.It is a very rocky mountain(limestone) with few vegetation mostly represented by juniper tree (and grass).Since 1935 it is a National park and it includes a Scientific Reservation. The highest point is Peleaga peak(2509 m) but the most important one is Vf Retezat(2482 m)In romanian language the word retezat means truncated and it is called this way because it looks like the peak of the mountain has been cut off,Legend has it that this happened in a fight between 2 giants.Bucura lake is the largest glaciar lake from the country (10 ha) and Zanoaga the deepest one (29m).Retezat is mostly a mountain good for trekking, then for rock-climbing.most of the routes are made hopping from stone to stone or on debris!!Hope i have been useful! if u have any more questions send a pm and i wil answer u(if i know how)!