It was August 28—Michaela's birthday, who for several years on this date has been climbing Sinanitsa Peak, followed by a party at the Spano Pole shelter. This year, she chose to start the climb to Sinanitsa from the marble quarries above the village of Ilindentsi, with the trail cutting across Konski Kladenets Peak but passing by the spring of the same name.
Due to the poor weather forecast, half of the people backed out, so there were only five of us on the hike—me, Mihaela, Vercheto (an acquaintance I hadn't seen in about 20 years) and her husband Dancho, who was our guide for the day.
Video:We left the car in Strumyani, and from there we were taken by jeep to a little over 8 km away. We set off on foot along the path to Konski Kladenets shortly after 9 a.m. The trail is marked only with stone pyramids, and they are few and far between, so it is a good idea to have a guide who knows the route, or oruxmaps with a map from bgmountains. .
After a short flat and slightly downhill section until we entered the ravine above the quarry, we began a steep climb into the forest. The trail in the forest is relatively easy to follow. Then we started to come out onto some steep meadows, which were overgrown and the trail was lost, so we followed the navigation on the phone because Dancho and Vercheto were a little behind.
Once we reached the ridge below Konski Kladenets, we joined a yellow-marked trail that was once used to reach the Sinanitsa hut. However, the markings were also disappearing, but from time to time there was a stone pyramid. Most importantly, right where the trail enters the ravine, there was a larger stone pyramid with a stick stuck in it so that it could be seen from a distance.
The trail had been cleared, and there was no drama in passing through this section with the bend. There were also many blueberries, but we didn't linger too long to pick them because cumulus clouds had begun to gather in the sky. We stopped for a rest at the Konski Kladenets spring and refilled our water bottles. By this point, about two hours had passed since the start of the hike.
From here, we had a beautiful view of Sinanitsa. It was so beautiful, steep, and jagged. Basically, the trail with the yellow markings took us to the foot of the peak. The trail cut across Sinanitsa on the left, and we began to climb the peak along its western edge. The climb is pleasant, there is nothing extreme about it. At 12:15 we were at the top.
Fortunately, the clouds had broken up, and we even had a few minutes of sunshine. At the summit, we naturally took photos and made a toast to Michaela's birthday. In fact, there were only three of us at the summit; we waited for Dancho and Verka for about an hour, but we finally caught up with them at the Sinanitsa summit for a group photo.
The wind brought a new heavy cloud, it became dark and cold, and our group split up again. The three of us, Mitko, Misheto, and I, took the ridge towards Sinanitsa Gate, leaving the other two to rest and eat. I took the standard route along the ridge through the gate, while Misheto and Mitko took some kind of shortcut, so I had to wait for them for about 15 minutes somewhere below Sinanitsa Gate. A word of advice from me – always take the royal road, the shortcuts are not faster or more convenient.
Heavy clouds began to gather, so we picked up the pace. From here to the Spano Pole shelter, we walked almost without rest, stopping only at one or two places for a short break. We passed the fork in the trail coming from the Vihren hut to the Yane Sandanski hut. It started to rain lightly. Luckily, we were close to the shelter. At around 3:20 p.m., we arrived at the Spano Pole shelter, just before the heavy rain started.
Misheto had initially reserved 12 places, but in the end she had declined 6, so we had exactly 6 beds reserved – 4 people in one bungalow with bunk beds and the other bungalow had 2 beds. Even though it was a weekday, over 40 people were expected to stay overnight, and more were arriving without reservations. That evening, the Spano Pole shelter was bursting at the seams.
That evening, there were six of us – the five of us from the hike and one more friend of Mihaela's who had joined us from Sandanski. We ate and drank to her health, celebrating her birthday in style.
Misha, out of carelessness, had gotten herself into another adventure. Right at the top of Sinanitsa, she rummaged through her backpack and found that her wallet was missing. Fortunately, it turned out that she had left it in the car, so there was no big drama. It was a good thing that the rest of us were carrying more cash.
The next day, we had breakfast and headed down to the Mozgovitsa spillways, where Misheto's colleague would be waiting for us with the jeep to take us back to Strumyani. We hurried to get down early because the forecast for that day was for rain to start in the afternoon.
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