Tag: Macedonia Hut

From Kartala to Macedonia Hut (2)

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

We went to Macedonia Hut in June – and it felt like a great hike. Kartala has a good asphalt road and a large free parking, which makes it a very convenient starting point. Most of the hike is in the forest, which was great, given the heat wave over the last week.

This second time, we took all the possible shortcuts and slowed the pace as much as we could. As a result of both, we managed to reach the hut in slightly over 3h. The path with the shortcuts is slightly above 8km, +720~~ meters. Without the shortcuts, it’s over 9km.

It has these brand and new slightly optimistic signs. The actual distance as measured by our smart devices varied by +300 to +600 meters. I think some of the expected signs are not yet installed because we couldn’t find them.

The hut keeper cooked us food and the day was fine. We rolled back down tired and well fed.

From Kartala to Macedonia Hut

~ Veselin ~ 18 Comments

We did our first true hike since we had children. I know we’ve been to Vitosha many times but Vitosha is almost a city park, it has lots of visitors, easy access, and is a low-effort adventure. Rila, on the other hand, is more remote, higher, and more scenic.

Our starting point, Kartala, is a small ski resort, 28 kilometers away from Blagoevgrad. The asphalt road to it is in a fine condition., Hut Macedonia is about about 9km further up in the Rila mountain. It should’ve been an easy 2.5h walk, according to all the websites we found. It might be 2.5 hours but you need to be in a good shape for it. For people like us, 3-4h is more realistic.

The path looks like this:

The trail is also accessible by vehicles with permit. It is used for supplying the hut and the nearby maintain rescue group. There are 3-4 well marked shortcuts that can cut maybe 2 kilometers from the total walk but are steeper and we only took them on the way down.

It starts as a continuation of the road Blagoevgrad-Kartala, however I would advise using the free parking at Kartala. The part of the road accessible for the public is maybe a few hundred meters and not worth breaking your car.

Took us 3h 10 min without any breaks for a total of about 26000 steps both ways, which is very close to my personal best since my phone started tracking in 2015.

We didn’t have any food so we were very happy that the hut keeper cooked for us and fed us well. The food was great.

The area is full of tiny creeks that all go to this small river, called Bistritza. I’d say it was moist. Lots of berries everywhere, still green, but once they’re ripe, the path will become even more challenging 😃

The altitude gain of this route is about 730 meters.