Spoiler alert – this post contains no actual climbing 😦

The farthest extent of our Balkan Odyssey was planned to coincide with the UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation) General Assembly to be held in Peja, in Kosovo, just over the border from Montenegro. It’s only about 50km from our temporary base in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro – “just over the hill”. However, the “Hills” in question are The Accursed Mountains. This is the southernmost subrange of the 1,000-kilometre-long Dinaric Alps, extending from northern Albania to western Kosovo and northeastern Montenegro, with Maja Jezercë (2,694m) its highest point.

This makes for a journey of around 4hrs (8hrs round trip) and we’d hoped to tack on some climbing to make it a more worthwhile excursion. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas (or were we cursed?) Major rainfall the day before our travel to Kosovo, and the day after the end of the Assembly meant that our climbing plans were a washout (annoyingly the three days of the GA were actually glorious – especially frustrating for Helen as she killed time on the campsite). Just writing this post to record a few impressions and logistical notes.

On the way over the hill we stopped to briefly recce the climbing at Kolasin. North East facing and a bit soggy, might make for a useful option in hot weather.

Handy topo at the foot of the crag.

Winding up and over the Accursed Mountains, crossing at around 1,800m, we cross the border from Montenegro into Kosovo. All very straightforward, although we did get a bit of a shock – we’d expected to have to buy local motor insurance (we’re covered in Montenegro, BiH and Serbia but not Kosovo or Albania) but the very reasonable €15 for 15 days we’d researched is for cars. Our pickup is €138. Ouch!

A second disappointment was finding the camping option we’d booked at Hotel Camp Karagaç consisted of parking in a scruffy, urban car park. Park4Night saved the day with Bujtina Podguri Stellplatz (very friendly and recommended), but it was a 20mins drive into town, making for rather stretched logistics. Hey ho.

The conference itself was at the much swankier Hotel Dukagjini, in the middle of the city.

Over 90 delegates representing 54 Federations from around the world – it really did feel like a huge family gathering of the global climbing community.

Here’s Team BMC hearing presentations from the latest countries seeking membership, including Armenia, Estonia, Syria and Kurdistan. All duly elected 🙂

As well as my BMC hat, I was also invited to present the Climbers Against Cancer story, including recent grants across four continents and projects to use climbing as part of a cancer recovery programme. Plenty of warm support as we try to fulfil our global ambitions.

Peja itself is a bustling city, but with a stunning backdrop of the Accursed Mountains.

On the outskirts of the city, the Rugova Gorge cuts through the mountains leading much more directly back to Montenegro (ignore Google maps efforts to take you that way, it’s a dirt road in the middle and there’s no border post!) it’s a really impressive canyon, and has recently seen the development of more than 50 routes, ranging in length from 10 to 200m. These are staggered at intervals along the gorge, with the first around 2km from the city centre. There’s some information available from the Tourist Centre…

Climbing

…and…

The New Rock-climbing Lines of the Accursed Mountains

… but it omits key details like GPS coordinates or other location  info, and topos. We made a brief recce but didn’t manage to locate the climbing – I’d imagine a more considered exploration would yield results, but the end-of-week washout meant that will have to be a future project.

Cutting our losses, we headed back over the mountains to explore another bunch of crags around Gusinje, basing ourselves at the lovely Autocamp Tahu on the shore of Lake Piva.

This was worth the diversion itself, with very warm hospitality from the owner. Having managed to dodge the ubiquitous “welcome drinks” of rhaki / cherry brandy for most of the trip, we finally succumbed – perhaps swayed by the roaring campfire.

We made a recce of the three main nearby climbing sectors, but not only were they all very wet (we’d arrived in biblical rain) but there was no likelihood of them drying out any time soon.

With the altitude and the mix of aspects, it’s probably an area to explore in September rather than late October.

Heading back to Podgorica from Piva we decided to indulge Google Maps with its direct route over the hill, taking the M9 (M for Montenegro not Motorway) saving 20mins and about as many kilometres.

The triangular road warning sign: “bumps for next 37km” should perhaps have been a clue, though it was the zigzags and thick leaf cover that was more of the issue. A memorable if mildly harrowing journey back to the metropolis.