Musala

2925m

The highest mountain in the Balkan peninsula lies in the Rila Mountains of Bugaria and is transliterated from Cyrillic script into English as Musala or Moussala with the accent on the first syllable. It is just 8 metres higher than its better known neighbour, Mount Olympus in Greece. The base town for the ascent of the mountain is Borovets which is better known as a ski resort than a walking centre since the mountains are snow covered for most of the year. July and August are the main months for hillwalking. We went in mid September when the place and the hills were very quiet but the weather was superb. A gondala lift runs about halfway up the mountain but this had stopped running a week earlier so we had to walk all the way. This turned a 6 hour walk into a 12 hour one but increased our satisfaction with the ascent.

Walk out of Borovets southwards, passing the Flora Hotel where we spent a comfortable week. You are on the route of the E8, a long distance path across Europe from the North Sea to the Bosphorous. At a picnic site and a bevy of signposts leave the road and continue up the Bistrica Valley. At a second picnic site the way crosses the river. Felling has partially obliterated the path here but you are unlikely to get lost. Keep looking for the red and white marks. It is worth knowing that black and white marks never denote a path but are connected with forestry. After about 2 hours you reach a fork. A blue marked path goes up to the top of the gondola but the best way to the mountain is to fork left, recross the river and keep on up the valley. The trees are replaced by bushes and eventually you reach an alpine meadow with the mountains ahead. Climb up rightwards to reach the Musala Chalet about three and a half hours after leaving Borovets. Once again you may lose the waymarks amongst thick shrubs but are unlikely to miss the collection of huts beside a rather weedy lake. Musala summit with its buildings can be seen behind and to the right of the hill which towers over this lake.

Pass between the lake and a large new chalet which was unfinished when we were there. The way zigzags up rightwards to another small lake and then cunningly forwards through very rough terrain to a higher and larger one. It is clearly marked and well constructed all the way to the highest lake, beside which is another new chalet which was closed when we were there. The ridge up the mountain is now to your right and looks quite formidable but the path is excellent albeit rather steep in places and you are soon on the summit which has a hut surmounted by a weather station. A makeshift cableway was bringing equipment up to a group who were doing construction work on this hut. The mist was swirling around but we got most of the views, which were superb. Musala is the highest summit of a horseshoe running from the top of the gondola lift around to the east of the Musala Chalet which would be a challenging circuit indeed. The highest tops are linked by extremely spiky ridges.

[pictures of this walk]

An equally splendid walk was our traverse to the Rila monastery

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