Long story, BEAR with me: Valea lui Stan Canyon, Frunții Mountains

Date: 27th of May. Team: Dragos, Rares, Matei and myself. Mountain trail: Stan's Valley (Valea lui Stan). First of all, I want to thank Matei for translating this article. 
Also, Matei added what is written in red (and the gifs). 

I found myself into a self-imposed exile away from any type of mountain and I was trying to focus all my energy towards something else. But I have to admit, I was in over my head with my math-related work and I had to get a breath of fresh air, both mentally and physically. With this being said, I received a phone call from Rares:

-If you were to go on a trip, which mountain would it be?

- STAN’S VALLEY... ...I responded quickly (that quickly), because it was an old debt to pay from last year. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure this was happening, my only interaction with the other guys was the discussion above. They discussed between them, they checked the weather, they set the date, my participation was non-existent (it’s a first, usually I do all the work because they are lepre ordinare/lazy). Obviously, with hope in my heart (walk on...), and because I am a control-freak I checked the weather prognosis (but they didn’t have to know that :D). Sunday afternoon, the phone rang again:

-Do you have plans for tomorrow?

-...

-If we get you to the start of the trail, can you handle the rest?
-Yesss!!!

To be honest, I was really impressed by their “surprise”…Rareș knew my mental state and led the charge, Matei just ran a half-marathon in Brașov (and I know what happens when you go on a hike after something like this: shameless plug 1, shameless plug 2) and Dragoș just returned to Romania for a few days. Well, it seems that day went better than they expected, as Dragoș and Rareș marked this route as one of their personal favourites and we ended the trip on a high note, encountering a bear. But enough spoilers, let’s how it went.

Transfăgărășan--Poiana Călugărița (red dot, 3h)

The trail starts somewhere before the Vidraru Dam (Barajul Vidraru), from a wayside crucifix on the left-hand side of the road, where we parked the car. The safest way to arrive there is to search “Valea lui Stan River” (exactly like this) on Google Maps. Attention! There is another place with this name (Valea lui Stan) which is in another place, just make sure you don’t arrive there (we dodged a bullet when we realised we were going towards Râmnicu Vâlcea not Curtea de Argeș, where you are supposed to go; Dragoș this one is on you).

At the start of the trail

Ice ice baby (link)

Where my camera took a bath

On an alternate Universe

 1. Delicate

2. Old habits (Matei's pictures)

 Spoiler alert 

You will understand pretty quickly why there are 7 exclamation marks on the map for this trail. We encountered soon a set of small leaning stairs, almost toy-like, but they soon changed into long stairs, along vertical walls, at a considerable height above the water below. I was so stubborn that I kept the camera around my neck as missing even one awesome shot would be a crime. So it almost took a shower during crossing the waterfalls and it almost kissed some of the stairs or the rocks. But he knows that I didn’t take him with me to keep him like a pansy in his cover :p.

Trail sample

Enthusiasm everywhere

Matei

Beyond the shadows, hapiness lies (foto: Matei)

 Dragoș and the bridge (photo: Matei)

Nature was kind to us that day, allowing us to encounter the crazy stuff of the trail in increasing order of difficulty. I don’t know how was I going to react if the first obstacle I saw was the vertical ladder from the picture above:)). When we actually reached that ladder, we were already warmed up to the trail, adrenaline levels were through the roof. I know I was taking my time with each step, even though, heck, I had to look down from time to time…“You made it on the Nordica (shameless plug 3), you can do anything, just don’t be a dummy and let go of the stairs, come, easy does it” I was saying to myself.

Step by step, as the saying goes

To me, the best parts were the vertical passes along the mountainside, which made for spectacular images and reminded me of bouldering. We looked like some little guys from a video game, first hurdle, second hurdle and so on, until the final one, where we encountered the ultimate boss, the bear…

Small preview

The death of a greenhorn

Dragoș leading the way, as always

The others with Klopp 

Yey! 

The chains are on (link)

A downside of this trail, for some city pansies like us, were the earth-worms that found shelter on the wet rocks (the guys were arguing that they can’t be worms as they had legs, but that doesn’t make it better at all). I’m sorry to say, but you have to pay attention to where you put your hand or your foot, or even your butt because you might want to rethink if that part of the mountain can offer you the best possible grip. Writing this, I can confirm that I’m safe, but I have to admit that I was afraid that the smart-asses I was with might do some 5th-grade jokes…I know them!!!

This is madness. Can you spot the stairway in the back?

Like a roller coaster

Floating above

Here was like someone filmed me in slow-motion, not too much speed

 Let's go!

Attention seeker:)) 

Translucent (Photo: Matei)

Next part of the trail was awesome, we had to go across a rock that was pretty long, so long that it made my hands hurt from gripping the safety cable. Above the puddle from the picture the Battle of Countless Tears took place because the boys (RARES!!!) thought it would be a good idea to throw rocks in it, to give us a proper shower. Even though it was stupid, it was also fun:)).

Parallel transport:)   (Photo: Rareș)

 ...towards the sky

But the canyon has an end (actually it’s like a sausage, it has 2), and at that end, there were us, with our feet taking a little bath in the river. The water level was quite high in that area and we didn’t know what to do, walk through it with/without our boots on or find another way. Probably it would’ve been funnier if there was someone there to take a picture of us looking on the other side of the river:)). The guys were hit by bridge building-mania, and tried to build one from heavy rocks found nearby. Surprise, they couldn’t.

 Showing them how it's done

Ladies don't want to wet their feet

Noisy

We had to repeat this at least 3 times. After all, Dragoș and Matei went across without taking their boots of (HAA!!!), but it took them a bit longer.

15 minutes left

 Corola de minuni

Piticii 

It seems that the peak-less trail tested us more than we thought… where will we take The Selfie, but more importantly, where should we open the Pepsi can? We did that in Poiana Călugărița.

 Selfie on the...peak!?

Poiana Călugărița--Barajul Vidraru--Mașină (red dot, 2h)

We went on for 30 minutes, following the red dotted sign, downwards through the woods. Then we reached the forest road and we passed by an abandoned cabin. After another 50 minutes, we reached Vidraru Dam.

 Spring comes with a lot of flower buds

Abandoned

From the little bridge that crosses the Vidraru lake

Soon...right after the snow melts

We can see the light!

That's a lot of green

Vidraru Dam: the light side

Vidraru Dam: the dark side (Photo: Matei) 

From Vidraru we had to walk for around 25 minutes along Transfăgărășan (on tarmac).

Trees are in blossom

We reached the car in one piece, we changed clothes and we were already thinking of what we were going to eat in Curtea de Argeș. We were starving, so we started our trip back home. I took out my camera to review the quality of the pictures taken, but I barely had time to see anything, because Rareș shouted: „Oi, that s a bear” (obviously he didn t say „oi”).

A BEAR'S BUTT!!!!!

And he stopped the car. Panic, happiness, pictures without number and videos. Then he shifted in the first gear to watch him closely, and we had a few moments where we looked at each other (the bear and me).

 afslfkjsdklfjaskldfjkasl!!!!

 Those ears!!!

Peaceful

And then, he sat down in the grass, showing that we weren’t bothering him at all. One last look and on we went.

Spot the people from Bucharest  (Photo: Matei)

At the moment I couldn’t process much of what just happened. We were triple lucky. First, we didn’t meet with him before we started our route because we wouldn’t have started one and our day would’ve been spent in the car. Second, this close encounter didn’t happen on the actual trail. And third, we got lucky that we met him from our car, us relatively safe, him in his natural habitat.

I would like to say that I’ve foreseen this, the river along Stan’s Valley was too loud or that the forest near Călugărița would be the perfect place for bears. Or Matei that obsessively repeated that there are scavengers bears near Vidraru (really, there are) and he hurried us up on the forest road. Or that we saw some type of droppings on the tarmac…(what a shitty thing to put in a story…ha). But I can’t say that, I see bear tracks everywhere. A broken clock is right 2 times, so…

Anyhow, like in that joke with the traveller that went with a bomb on his plane trip (what are the odds of 2 guys having a bomb on the same plane)...what are the odds of having a similar encounter during our lifetime (Cipriana, stop tempting fate…). One thing is clear, we won’t panic again, we fulfilled our wish:)).

About the actual trail... it was really something different, and the boys said they enjoyed it. I can recommend this to someone who has a minimal mountain experience, with no height sickness and a decent enough physical condition. Of course, if they want a nice mountain experience. Obviously, with adequate equipment. (BOOOTS!!!)

In the end, I’d like to thank the guys for their spontaneity and organization, you really helped me out there. (The bad pun from the title comes from Matei. Good luck to him translating that to english:D).