The Peleaga and Papusa Peaks

How to get here?

If you are close to Cluj-Napoca or to Timisoara, the Retezat Massif is very accessible. It will take around 3 hours by car to reach a starting point on one of the treks.

The locality where you should get, first of all, is the small city of Hateg.

The easiest way to reach the Peleaga Peak

If you are a fan of sleeping in a tent, you can split this into two days by setting-up your tent close to The Bucura Lake, 2040 meters altitude, in a wonderful environment.

Using the car, you should start from The Gura Apelor Dam and reach in ~1h the Poiana Pelegii point on an unpaved road. You would need to know that the road is not in its best shape, but it can be done using a car with normal height.

Once you have reached the Poiana Pelegii point, now it’s the time to park your car and take on your backpack.

By going to the upper point of the Poiana Pelegii, you will find an indicator in a cross of treks. You should go left, following the Vertical Blue Line mark, to Lacul Bucura (The Bucura Lake). It will take up to 2 hours and you can consider this part as not being difficult. It doesn’t have steep areas and the length of the trek is not a long one.

Once you got to Bucura Lake, you can admire the landscape for a while.

After you took a break, you would need to follow the  (yellow cross marked) path, which is leading to the right side of the lake, through the front of the Mountain Rescue (Salvamont) small chalet.

Here you will find the last chance of finding water for the rest of the track so be careful to do not miss it.

After that, continuing the same path, you will need to sweat a little bit by climbing a steep segment, which will take between 2 and 3 hours. The good part is once you have finished it,  you reached the highest point of the Retezat Massif: The Peleaga Peak, 2509 meters.