Bâlea Valley yet again

I'm back in Cârtișoara after spending two weeks in the Bucegi Mountains. Rushed through Easter shopping this morning and around one o'clock I had the car parked at Bâlea Waterfall (1200m) and was all set to start my ascent to Bâlea Lake (2034m). I checked the avalanche forecast before I left the house, it was 4 out of 5 at and above 1800m. Not great, but judging from what I saw in Bucegi I thought the forecasters were playing it safe. Will keep my eyes open anyway! I decided to follow the road as much as possible. Had to walk almost 1km to reach snow and put the skis on. A snowmobile track made my life much easier.

Suddenly I saw the footprints of a brown bear. So they're out of hibernation, big and hungry! Mister Bear had followed the path of least resistance, which was the snowmobile track I was following. Not good! My dog got excited. Dogs have the nasty habit of chasing bears, pissing them off and then running back to you for protection. That's when the trouble starts. Luckily mine forgot about the bear very soon and went to chase a squirrel scent instead. The bear left the trail a few hundred meters from where I first spotted his footprints. All clear!

About an hour into the ascent I met some snowmobilers. One of them had an accident which resulted in a few broken ribs. His friends were helping him of the mountain. Everything was under control so I pushed on. You'll see from the pictures that the higher you get, the steeper the terrain gets. To avoid a few avalanche prone areas I had to get off the skis and put the ice axe and crampons to work. Just to play it safe. It took me about 4 hours to reach Bâlea Lake and I was more tired than I expected. The last part took its toll. Snow was much softer and deeper than in Bucegi. It has still over 240cm in depth at the top of the valley while in Bucegi it doesn't have more than 90cm at the same altitude.

Caught my breath for a few minutes, ate half a sandwich, removed the skins from my skis, tightened my ski boots and I was ready to descend. What took me 3 hours to climb took less than 20 minutes to descend. The steeper part at the top was a lot of fun although the snow was somewhat heavy, making steering quite difficult. I got to my car about one hour after leaving the top.

Driving back to Cârtișoara I thought a bit about the possible dangers I avoided today: big hungry bear, rock slide, avalanches, fall. Knowledge plays a big role in staying safe but luck needs to be thrown into the mixture to guarantee a safe return. Or is it Karma?!