Two days of physical effort, without being tired, but feeling so light and relaxed, surrounded by all the beauty that nature has to offer. This is how our trip to the Bârcaciu Chalet was.

We were planning for quite a while to have a winter trip to the mountains and sleep for a night or two in a nice chalet and finally we made it. The initial plan was to leave on Saturday for the Suru Chalet (where we have been last summer for a weekend trip in the Fagaras Mountains), but on a Thursday night we made the decision to leave the next day in the afternoon and go the the Bârcaciu Chalet, in the Fagaras Mountains. We chose this chalet, as we have never been to it before and because the trip was shorter and we could get there before the night came.

We left from Sibiu at noon, on Friday to Avrig and from there to Poiana Neamtului by car. We left the car at the Poiana Neamtului Chalet, because we couldn’t go any further, we took our hiking boots, our back-packs and we started walking on the red cross trail.

At the beginning the road is quite muddy, but after you enter the forest the trail is a delight. We did put quite some effort in getting to the chalet. It took us about 2 and a half hours and it was mostly going up. But the weather was nice, it wasn’t too cold and the forest looked amasing.

In the last hour of climbing we even started to see some snow on our way, but not that much to get scared.

Somewhere close to the chalet, the dogs came for us in the forest and guided us to the chalet.

The Bârcaciu Chalet is situated at 1550m high in the Fagaras Mounatins, it has 18 beds, but also plenty of room to sleep with your sleeping bag in the attic. Nea Petre and his wife take care of the chalet and they welcomed us with a warm dinner and some nice stories. We did go to sleep quite early, as we were a bit tired after all the trip. The chalet was not so warm during night, but as we were the only ones there, we abused of the available blankets and we did have quite a nice sleep.

In the morning we woke up and Tanti Mariana, Nea Petre’s wife, prepared a very rich breakfast for us.

We were initially planning to stay on Saturday night as well and spend all day, on Saturday, hiking around the chalet. But when we woke up we saw that outside there was a snow storm, quite powerful and that it was almost impossible to go higher. From the Bârcaciu Chalet you can go to the Avrig Lake, to Suru Chalet or to Negoiu Chalet.

We did go out a bit and this is how the weather looked like :

Around noon we decided that we don’t have too many options for the day and we should go back home. We started descending around 1 PM and in 2 hours we were back to our car. If on Friday when we went up, there was almost no snow in the forest, now we had snow all the way down.

It was like a fairy tale. So quite, everything was white and full of snow. We did see some animal footprints and I got a bit scared, as always, but we got back to the car safe. We were the only people on the trail, we didn’t meet anyone else.

The Bârcaciu Chalet is opened all year round, sleeping there for a night costs 30 Lei (45 Lei with  breakfast included) and you can also get food and drinks (the drinks are a bit high, but you’re in the mountains, so there is no other option).

We had two absolutely lovely days, the weather was nice, the chalet was nice, the mountains were beautiful, everything contributed to this perfect trip.