Tumba in November 2020

Our last autumn hike for this year - from the village of Planinitza to peak Tumba (1129 m) in the Cherna Gora mountain. This is one of those easy, open air trails in the low western mountains that we love to hike in the spring and the autumn on a cloudless sunny day. Saturday was such a perfect hiking day - it was so unexpectedly warm, that our jackets, hats and gloves remained in the backpacks all of the time. Only two days later, on Monday, the weather drastically changed and now the country is covered with snow and the temperatures are way below zero for a third day in a row.

:The village of Planinitza, the starting point of our hike, down the hill. The fields of the village were amazingly green with crops that late in autum

:The biggest and sweetest sloes I've ever tasted

Hike info:

Destination: peak Tumba (1129 m)

Mountain: Cherna Gora

Total length: 13.5 km

Elevation gain: 230 m

Total duration (plus picnic): 4 hours

Average difficulty: 3 / 10

:The trail goes up and down low hills and peaks. We deliberately chose the tracks up and not around and climbed most of them, just for the exercise

:Peak Tumba. The only tourists we met on this hike were a couple of families with children, who had come to the peak along the trail from the nearby monastery.

:The picnic with a view. We passed by the peak and settled on a meadow with a view to the numerous peaks and mountains of Kraishte, basking under the warm November sun.

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

Husband: men's boxers, hat, raglan sweater, socks

I:  lingerie, socks, Copper Cables sweater, black cables hat, green Borika gloves

:And back along the same trail. The days are so short now, that soon the sun was low, the light golden and the shadows long.

:Self portrait with a shadow

:Pchelina reservoir, another favourite spot of ours, in the distance

:And back to Planinitza