Black Lake Durmitor National Park - Montenegro
Žabljak - a town in Montenegro that we, like I am sure most of my friends, have never even heard of, is absolutely beautiful and a welcome break from from the oppressive heat we have been experiencing the past few weeks.
Our morning hike to Black Lake (Crno Jezero) started with wonderful cool temperatures, the smell of evergreens, and plentiful sunshine to greet us during our walk to the lake. The scenery is stunning and while I am glad to capture pictures along the way they do not convey to shear joy we both have enjoying nature, the smell of the evergreens, the sound of the birds in the morning can not be captured with a photo.
The hike around the lake started easily enough, a path was clearly marked. There are several hiking trails that can be taken from the area to other parts of Durmitor National Park but we stayed on the path marked for around the lake. All went well, capturing pictures along the way of the forest and stunning color of this glacial lake.
Then we came across an ominous sign of what was to come, “Dangerous Trail!”. We pressed on knowing we could always turn back if it was too much or us, just as we did in Kotor. I am glad I purchased some hiking shoes in Žabljak when we arrived. The dangerous part was steep stairs (stairs of death) and we did navigate that slowly without any reservation.
When we came around the back half of the lake, we stayed there and enjoyed the scenery, then decided to continue around the lake. We soon found that we should have gone back to the path we exited. I found what I thought was the trail to continue around, to be fair it was a trail. Just with much more difficulty than the stairs of death we just navigated. There were felled trees to crawl over, steep inclines to scramble up and the “almost” coup de grâce of the path a 20 to 30 foot incline up a very steep almost cliff face. There was a rope there so it was a path! We tested the rope and it was secure and thankfully it held.
I did not capture any pictures while we went though this area as we both were tiring and took breaks along the way. Thankfully I did get a picture of the rope after we got to the top. We never feared getting lost since we kept the lake in our sight the entire time.
All ended well and we were proud of ourselves that we accomplished an impromptu challenging hike.
“I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” A day of rest and research for our next adventure in Durmitor National Park is in order.
