Figure 8 On A Bike

At this point in the trip we were feeling a little discouraged, a little gray, a little tired of packing, and a little ready to relax. We couldn't quite start this second round in Brașov relaxing; however, as we had to check out of the hotel and check into the Airbnb where we had left our stuff. Our host wasn't getting back to us, so when we checked out of our hotel, we used the codes from the last time to get into the complex. We snatched some shoes from our pile of stuff in the laundry room and left our mountaineering gear in the pile. Unburdened, we headed out for another day of sightseeing in Brașov. We checked out some places we hadn't seen during our first stay in Brașov. Like Rope street which claims to be Europe's narrowest alley. We enjoyed the street art and graffiti before heading towards Biserica Ortodoxa Sfântul Nicolae and the First Roman School. It was steadily raining and we were looking forward to hiding inside the museum. Alas, when we arrived...

We knew good weather was supposed to be in store for Saturday, and woke up that morning to find the skies clearer and sun brighter than any day so far. I strolled out into the sunroom to appreciate the full view of the mountains, when something a bit off in color against the cliffs and snow caught my eye. There in the distance, exactly where our internet resource had said - icefalls! Water frozen blue against the dark rocks, inviting us out to come test our picks and crampons. What did those people in Bucharest and Brasov know? Here was the climbing we'd hoped for since first landing in Romania. I rushed to grab Susan and we stared out the window together, casting aside all our other plans and reorganizing to head up the valley again. The view from the sun deck at the cabana - spot the ice!

The first train from Brasov to Porumbacu station left at a quarter past 6 AM, so we woke up to an early alarm and went to the edge of dark and quiet old-town Brasov to catch our Bolt to the train station. I couldn't shake the feeling of forgetting something; it felt odd to travel with just one backpack each instead of our usual 6 bags, but given the moderate hike in to the Cabana Negoiu I was happy to only have a single piece of luggage and leave the rest at the Airbnb we'd be returning to in about a week. And these backpacks still bursted with supplies - mainly snacks, since even though we'd made peace with giving in and buying dinners and breakfasts from the mountain hut, we still needed 7 days of lunches. And chocolate bars. We had six nights reserved at Cabana Negoiu, a mountain refuge perched on a forested ridge below Varful Negoiu, Romania's second highest peak, in the Fagaras Mountains, a subrange of the Carpathians that served as a natural barrier between his...