Peace Corps Volunteer Steve in Romania: August 2007

Support Team - missing Heather

Sheep Crossing

2,457 Meters high-up - I believe we reached 2,800 meters as a max.

Fog

Rappelling right into the water. Yes, it was very very cold.

The Carpathian Challenge was probably one of the most difficult race challenges I have been faced with to date. Our team (groups of four and there had to be at least one female) was the Pirates of the Carpathian and had the following Peace Corps volunteers; Chris, Carol, Justin, and myself. It makes running a marathon a walk in the park. The first event was trekking/mountain climbing and we started at 8am Thursday morning. It was supposed to be approximatly 62km but we definitely went over that due to getting lost (really easy to do) and trying to find water. Now, after departing, the only time you return to base camp is if you can no longer continue (but you still have to find your way back) or you finish the entire trekking/mountain climbing course.

Thursday - Trekked to a majority of the check points but had to camp at a checkpoint Thursday night because it was around 11pm and plus after trekking/climbing uphill (which downhill takes just as much energy especially across wet rocks) we needed to rest. Trekked uphill for about 14 hours. We were a little slow but managing to move forward.

Friday was a complete nightmare. Woke up Friday 5am to a thunderstorm. We only packed a tarp and sleeping bags (no tent) because you have to travel light. We made a makeshift tent from the tarp and huddled in it for one hour. We started trekking again at about 6:15 am when it was only drizzling. Now we had to make it to checkpoint 7 then basecamp, which ended up being the biggest nightmare. Let's just say from 6am we were hoping to make it back to basecamp by 3pm Friday, this would not be remotely close.

note: you only have a map and compass. No guides, GPS is not allowed and you really need someone with serious orienting / topography map reading skills. We found out even with the master's team, who are serious expert mountain hikers that when the fog is out, you can end up anywhere, as you can see in one of the pictures.

This was probably the hardest leg of the mountain climbing. You ended up about 2800 meters high, literally balancing on slippery rocks after the rain and nothing but a steep fall on either side. There were times you truly were holding for life.
We took two major wrong turns which caused us about a 6-7 hour delay. One was due to two paths had the same markings. About 2 to 3 teams that were behind us also made the same mistake. Then another wrong turn since the fog was covering up the mountain ridges and you can't tell where you remotely are. We thought we found the checkpoint but it ended up being a master's team realizing they made a mistake. This was bad because now we ran out of water. Chris, Carol, and I hiked down to a side of a mountain and literally dug out a small little stream to fill up on water. We were drinking anything we can find. We found another team that was lost and we stuck together but there was a point we literally waited until the fog to clear for a little bit. Once it did, we were able to point out the correct ridge to go on.

Finally made it to checkpoint 7 after close to 11 hrs trying to find it. We were not out of the woods yet (literally). From checkpoint 7 you had to make it to base camp which was approximately another 5-6 hours. You had to descend without any markings through the woods trying to find your way out. We did not stop because we knew if we did not get out of the woods by night we would be in a bad situation. Let's just say it was raining and descending on slipperly grass and blueberry bushes, you ended up with a blueberry butt right away. Lot of falling and a lot of strain on your feet and knees. Luckily we barely spotted a clearing made it out of the woods to find an old logging trail to the main road. We made it back to base camp at 11 pm Friday night. We were one of the last teams to make it back. Many teams already quit due to being seriuosly lost and exhaustion.

Saturday morning 5:30 am. Yes, I wanted to cry. We got up to start the Canyoning, Caving, Rappelling and Rafting portion. It was raining and cold. The first event we went to was the Canyoning, because it was raining, the river was waist high at certain points and of course we had to walk through it. Cold and soaking wet.

Not to make it worse but after that we went caving, which inside the cave, felt like 40 deg farenheit, now, I was really really cold. Coming outside after Caving felt like a sauna (even though it was still cold outside). Rapelling was pretty cool, you actually had to zip-line across from one mountain top to another mountain top then rappell. Yes, that is me rappelling right into the cold river.

Rafting, we had to build our own raft (out of 4 inner-tubes , 5 pieces of wood and 6 pieces of string) and row for 3 kilometers, at least the sun was out for awhile.

Biking, the last event, 80 kilometers. We gave it our best shot but in the end, this is where we were taken down. I believe that this was even harder than the hiking portion.