How it all began on the paths of Bucegi

Dear traveler,

I'd like to tell you a story about how I started to walk the mountain trails. 

I was already 2 years old when my parents thought it's time to take me on my first hiking trip.

I traveled at the mountain side before, I knew how it looked like, I got overwhelmed at the view of the dizzy heights, the forest's green, the snow on the crests, but never could I imagined that I could actually go up there. 

I was a bit nervous, but if I only knew back then that it was Mamarmot's first hiking trip as well, maybe that feeling would've disappeared. 

Dad hiked a few times before. Once he even crossed paths with a bear.

Of course, for me, that was very funny. Thinking about a plush stuffed bear, I could not imagine why his encounter with a bear would make him change his pants. 

Mamarmot never hiked before, just at the mopuntain base, but she's the type of person that loves walking. A few years back she walked the coast of the Black Sea.

She sometimes tells me bedtime stories about mountains, which amaze me and make me more and more curious. As a child, she has been fascinated by Heidi, the mountain girl, but also by the stories her father told her, namely, my grandpa. 

Her father always told her stories about the Bucegi mountains, about how he hiked during the night on the plateau, under millions of stars, about how he camped with his friends or how they adventured through a place called Hornurile. On Sundays they had a tradition: they sat together and looked at slides and in time this started to open a whole new universe inside Mamarmot, without her knowing.

From Heidi, she learned about the edelweiss flower, or at least this is what she remembers.

This dream was burning for many years inside her, and it became reality when Mamarmot walked her first steps, holding my hand, on my grandpa's footsteps that were long trodden. 

So here we are. 

I may be small, but even if I was bigger, I would've still been an ant in all this immensity. 

We left early in the morning and nobody is on the trail. It's an unbelievable silence and everything stands still. Only from time to time you may here a bee buzzing. 

The grass is yellow and fluffy and from time to time I can see winding footpaths. I want to touch the grass and the earth and the sky and to run around but it seems that while hiking we must follow the beaten path so my parents carry me on their shoulders and we continue further.

At one point, around us appear multiple viewpoints towards closer or distant ridges and the path gets narrowed more and more.

I may have a better view from my dad's shoulders, or we are actually climbing a little, but we reach a place where we can see over another plateau, and in the distance, an enormous valley.

I can see a big cross. Is that where we're going?

It seems so! Dad takes me down from his shoulders and carries me in his arms because there are some cables here which he holds on to so he can descend easier.

We finally reach it and I can't believe how big it is! No need to mention what beauty lies around us!

Fang-shaped ridges, down in the distance you can see the city, I'm so sky high I can't even believe it!

My folks tell me that we passed through this valley many times, staring up to this place and now we are so small that nobody can see us. 

I jump and wave, who knows. 

I'm not tired of enjoying this view but my folks tell me that we should return.

We return on the same pathway but now we start meeting with other hikers.

"You walked so far??Well done!". "Yes", I tell them. I am so proud!

We visit these rocks that my folks call Babele and Sfinxul. They look interesting.

Back to our car, I feel like I've been in a fairytale. And Mamarmot too. 

I'm sure that this will be the beginning of a beautiful journey.