Carmela Biscuit's Spot: Kominite and Kamen Del, 2023

I'm finally catching up with the blog and all the hiking and traveling we did lately. Like many diary-type blogs, mine changes with my life and hobbies, and from a knitting blog it gradually turned into a hiking blog - this is the only one of my hobbies I'm not giving up and I'm trying to find free time for, even in my as of late very busy schedule.

This Saturday we hiked on Vitosha, in the region of Kominite and Kamen Del. The day was another one of those warm days, more like late summer than mid-autumn, with bright blue skies and almost no wind, even at the higher parts of the mountain.

Initially, we had planned a relatively short hike from Bay Krustyo lift station to Kominite and then down to Kikish shelter and back to the car along a circular route.

Kominite is a place with interesting rocks, favourite with rock-climbers and hang gliders.

The first of the Kominite rocks is behind me

The three consecutive rock formations and a view to Sofia

Once we climbed up to the final rock formation, we decided to take a detour along a path in the grass to a near-by peak. We came upon lots of blueberries and cranberries, stopped to eat and pick some and gradually came to the decision to extend our hike to peak Kamen Del and from there to continue downwards towards Momina Skala hut and from there to take the trail back to Bay Krustyo.

And so we did. We climbed up, until we crossed the trail from Aleko to Kamen Del - one of the most popular trails on Vitosha, which on such a glorious weekend day was packed with tourists.

Peak Kamen Del - it looked like a public meeting place :) We had our lunch on a rock formation nearby.

The plateau, Golyam Rezen and Cherni Vruh in the distance

Hike info:

Destination: peak Kamen Del (1862 m) along circular trail

Mountain: Vitosha

Total length: 12.5 km

Elevation gain: 500 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 5 hours

Average difficulty: 4 / 10

Soon after we started down towards Momina skala, husband's right hiking shoe fell apart. Well, the incident had its precursors, there were signs of wear and he had already ordered and paid for his new hiking shoes (expected to be delivered later this week), but we thought these could last at least a couple more hikes. Well, we reckoned wrong :( The sole peeled off from the front back to the heel and walking was impossible, as it flopped and turned back on every step. And we had at least 8 more km through rough terrain back to the car! Husband tried to tie it with the shoe tie, but the front part of the shoe continued to flop. Luckily, we soon came upon a medicine box, which, apart from some sanitary products, had a single small zip tie and it saved the day. Husband made a hole at the front of his sole and constructed this contraption, which helped him to finish the hike, walking quite normally. From now on we'll be carrying zip locks in our backpacks, you never know when you might need them :)