I left Gjirokaster and drove about 240 miles all the way back to the northern part of Albania, the northeast corner this time. You may remember, I tried to hike up Mt Korab, the highest peak in Macedonia AND Albania when I was in Macedonia a few weeks ago, but was denied by the Macedonian border cops who said that the trail was closed. Instead, I hiked Medenica, which was an awesome hike, and got a pretty epic selfie with Korab in the distance. Well, I just couldn’t let it go and I know I’m a little nutty, but…

I…

WANT…

THAT…

PEAK!!!

My drive took me back up the coast, around Tirana, all the way up in the mountains to the little village of Radomire, where I booked a room at one of the two small hotels in town, which just happens to be directly across the street from the trailhead. The day I arrived I had just a couple of hours of daylight left, so I did the short half mile hike up to Black Lake.

The next morning I was up with the sun, had a good breakfast and off I went. You can kind of see Korab from the village, but it’s way off and difficult to make out. I had no idea which one it was. Turns out it’s way off to the right where the mountains seem to dip in the pic below. Most of the hike was through beautiful grassland where sheep and goat herds roam all day. Sheep and goats are a really big deal here. I’ve eaten more goat cheese and goat yogurt in these mountain towns than I thought I would in my entire lifetime.

This was a pretty challenging hike with a lot of elevation gain, just shy of 5000ft. The climbing never seems to end and then finally you reach the top of the ridge, which is the border with Macedonia for an amazing view of Albania’s neighbor.

But then you make a hard left, see the peak and realize, the fun’s not quite over yet. Keep climbing!

The views from Korab are absolutely tremendous! I took pictures in all four directions. The east picture is Macedonia and features some old friends, Mavrovo Lake and Medenica peak from a few weeks ago. Just amazing!

Now for the hard part, the knee pounding, spine shortening descent. My body is really sore after this hike.

I’ll leave you with this funny little side story. As I was coming down the mountain, almost back to Radomire, one of the random thoughts that popped into my head was that I hadn’t seen any of those old communist bunkers here. When I got back to my room to start cleaning up, I looked out my window which looks into the backyard of the hotel and what did I see? Ha! It’s in pretty bad shape, but I had to go out and get a pic of it.

In the morning, I’ll drive to my last stop on this trip. Just a few more days to go and then back to reality. Bleh!