Roofs & Rambles

Harry and Louis were keen to climb a really high mountain. The white edifice that over looks Bansko is the second highest mountain in the Balkans. A steep pyramid of marble. At 2914 it is only 11m short of the highest in the Rila range to the north.  We set of from the Banderitsa Hut some 12km form Bansko. This was the place I had my brief encounters with the Nutcracker tail and the missed one whilst sat under an umbrella! But the day was to start well. After no more than three or four steps up the rickety stairs I noticed a nutcracker fly to a branch. There it fed a couple of young birds. Louis and Harry had a look. The day was going to be a good day.

Within two minutes I noticed a bird of prey high against the grey rocks above – a Golden Eagle. Both of the boys managed to have a look and Harry was very impressed. The stout Balkan pines seemed to be packed with Nutcrackers as we headed up above the tree line. The meadows were full of colour and the plants were similar to ones that I know well from green roofs – knapweeds, Scabious, yarrow, vetches, and rock roses.  This makes it all seem paradise.

Visually it was but physically it was bloody hard work. I had chosen this route as it looked the less steep and on the map their appeared to be a few ‘meadows’, which would give some respite from the climb. But I was taking it slowly as the two thirteen holidays bounded up the rock path. Harry is very fit. Louis less so but he managed to keep pace with his best friend. Me lagged like an oldun. After two hours we were above the meadows and onto the bare rock of Vihren.

We had lunch; a peregrine and a kestrel flew by sending disturbing a couple of Water Pipits. But still there had been sight of Alpine Accentors or Shore Larks. The view was spectacular. I check with the boys that they were still up for the final ascent. ‘Of course – we can do it’ they said with indignation as if I doubted both their determination and stamina. TO be honest it was me who wasn’t sure he would make it and as the ‘responsible’ adult I would have to scupper their ambitions or dragged myself up behind them [dare I say it like an unwilling donkey]. It was hard bloody hard. Half way up I met some American bulgars 20 years my junior who resting on the marble. One of them looked towards the boys some 100m away and said ‘Oh to be young’, that made me feel better. On the marble pavement this high there were a whole range of new species of plants, which I took every opportunity to take pictures of as much as a record as a means to get my breath back.

It took the boys about 40mins to ascend the final climb and me about an hour. There they were at the top waving their arms at the summit as I clambered up. It was a good feeling. And they both looked well chuffed that they had made it. Before I had even I had time to catch breathe Harry spurted out with his usually ebullience ‘OK, where’s Everest.’  A large Bulgarian middle-aged man climbed the summit cairn and flew the Bulgaria flag, which the boys thought was ‘mad’.  The descent was a little trickier. The side we had ascended had been steep but the side we descended was almost a cliff! And full of loose rocks. The boys thought this was ‘deep’, i.e. well good! All I could think of was Louis’ mother’s expression of horror if she happened to have been here! ‘Your going to kill my son’. I gave the boys a little mountaineering [what do I know about mountaineering] talk about using arms, bums and anything to keep one on terra firma. Both of them keep throwing stones down the precipice. The purpose of this from their conversation was to ascertain what it would be like if one of them fell!!! They thought this was fun!!!! I thought it was macabre.

At the base of the cliff the mountain panned out into a wide valley of meadows. A couple of Alpine Accentors put in a show and Louis noticed a bank of snow. He had to urinate in the snow. This was very important to him and so he did. Over the next brow we entered a rubble-strewn cirque. All of suddenly a kestrel appeared and set up a pair of birds – a pair of Shorelarks. I could just make out the white rather than the yellow faces of the SE European race before they disappeared. It seem strange to refer to them as Shorelarks high on a mountain miles from the sea Perhaps I have never been one for American bird names but in this case Horned Lark seems more appropriate than Shorelark.

The thing about walking in the mountains is that as you are going up you long to be going down. When you are going down you long to be going up. And going down I have always found harder on the legs than going up. You have to walk sideways a to ensure you don’t get momentum up and hurtle down the steep bits. This uses muscles you don’t usually use. About halfway down I had a little slip and bang my knee. I knew tomorrow was going a very painful day. Once we hit the tree line nutcrackers started to appear. The first I saw were in panic as a Goshawk hurtled through across the skyline. About an hour from the end the boys started that eternal child refrain ‘Are we nearly there? How far is it Dad? The only minor moan of the day, which far from being irritating was rather reassuring, as I was really suffering and it was good to know that they were too! At the café at the end we had to wait for an hour for the bus down to Bansko. In a Willow tree opposite a warbler put in an appearance – an Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler, my first new bird of the trip.

A good day had by all. A sore day for me tomorrow!