Between Prahova and Doftana valleys

After last year expedition, it was time for another one around the village of Secăria, this time, the weather not to nice, but, then again it was a good opportunity to visit Mihai's holiday house, with about the same route as last year, this time though also activating YO/EC-480, a new addition to SOTA since last year.

The hiking starts from Secăria, and of course the weather wasn't too kind, so lot of bog on the road

but still a quite nice road and well used do pretty good shape gently going upwards about 4km, with some good panoramas around

Too bad for the wet terrain tough, but some old logs proved to be a good dry enough shack so it turned out quite well after all for staying there. Not too much on the propagation side tough, barely could manage a few contacts (6 more exactly), QRN was quite bad and of course big contest weekend wasn't helping either.
But that's it, enough to claim the summit, and also got some curious quests around:

but he also took a back turn quite fast

Same amount of bog going down, nothing new here, but still in time to hike to the other side of Secăria village, to YO/EC-312 (same as last year) with a bit better propagation but weather getting worse

The clouds were getting more menacing and it was also getting late, so even though we followed the last year's itinerary, we didn't manage for a third summit, but at least consoled with a nice big barbecue in the evening.

YO/MC-017

The King's Rock, a true jewel in the South-Eastern Transylvania, an impressive limestone formation with a north-south orientation wedged into the normally west-east oriented Charpatians chain

It was a very good choice for this sunny autumn day, quite warm for the period, no snow anywhere (and the summit is above 2200m so very prone to snow) so together with Sorin, Barbu and Mihai, went of to a quick one-day hike up and down those impressive walls.
Set out of Peștera village with a surprisingly new and very good asphalt road almost to the top of the village a near one of the usual starting place for conquering the King, the Folea hut. On the way one can admire a very nice mountain village with houses dispersed around the ridgetops, near impressive cliffs:

and autumn colored vegetation:

Fall colors followed us on the first part of the hike, a very long quite flat journey until the base of the mountain

After about 2 hours of hiking through a the woods, we were finally just below the magnificent ridgeline, still towering above us by about 1000m

Yeah, the summit is the highest one on bit right side of the above picture, with the climbing route taking the almost direct approach towards it. Something like this:

So a nice challenge with almost the same amount of time needed as the very long approach before. Finally up on the highest point this time admiring the ridge this time looking down

Of course not too much time for looking around, as the time was getting late, and the same amount expected also for the way back, so quick erecting the antenna (fortunately it can be strapped to the pole indicating the summit) and go for the pileup. A lot of station as usual and even W1OW bringing a nice DX as well.
Not too much time tough, so we could get down on the last rays of the sun back to the car, not before admiring some other good SOTA spots nearby (YO/MC-031):