Climbing Sinanitsa from Mandrata

This year, we climbed Sinanitsa Peak again on August 28—Michaela's birthday. It has become a tradition for her to climb the peak on her birthday. This time, we climbed from Mandrata to the Sinanitsa hut and then along the ridge directly to the peak.

In my younger years, I climbed the trail from Mandrata to the Sinanitsa hut 2-3 times a year, dozens of times in total, including about 10 times in winter. Over the years, I have observed how the bare slope above the forest has gradually become reforested, and now the forest has reached much higher up. Above the junction with the trail coming from Tsranata Voda.

This year, there were 10 of us, with heavy backpacks, and we slowly climbed to the hut in 4 hours. There we took a short break to drink some beer and then headed up to the summit. It took us about an hour and a half to climb up. At the summit, Michaela took out an improvised cake with candles and we celebrated her birthday.

The group split into three. Some went back the way we came, others went around Momina Peak and Sinanishka Gate, and the last three went down one of the gullies between Sinanitsa and Momina Peak. In the evening, we gathered at the hut, ate, and drank to Michaela's health.

The next day we headed for the Gergiyski Lakes. It was obvious that people rarely used the path, as weeds were slowly taking over, and blueberries were abundant – large and juicy, our mouths turned purple from eating so many blueberries.

At a leisurely pace, we reached the Gergiyski Lakes, where we sat down to have lunch and enjoy the beautiful sunny weather. Then we set off along the path to the Bukata area. I had passed through there 5-6 years ago, and at that time it was clearly marked. But now it was so overgrown with grass in places up to waist height that if we hadn't had navigation, we would have had difficulty finding our way.

We slowly and gloriously descended to Bukata and then took the dirt road to Mandrata. We arrived there around 5-5:30 p.m., just in time for the transport that had come to pick us up.