iHasco Conquer Mt. Musala & the Seven Rila Lakes

Posted 5 years ago

The top of Musala, our heads in the clouds!

This weekend, 20 of the iHasco team took on the challenge of climbing to the top of Bulgaria’s (and the Balkans) highest peak – Mt. Musala.

We started the trip with an early wake-up call to get to Heathrow Airport. Once we landed we had a fantastic walking tour of Sofia from our lovely guide.

On Saturday we woke up early to catch a coach to the start of our hike and the base of Mt. Musala, where we took a cable car to Yastrebets summit. From here we had to climb to the summit of Mt Musala (Some 690 meters up!). As the air got thinner and the terrain got tougher and steeper, some of us started to struggle but we made it! We rested up in the clouds for a few minutes, got a team photo and then our guide revealed that going back down would be equally as hard!! This totalled to around 6 hrs of walking; a distance of approx 14km; climbing and descending 690m.

We did it! 2925m above sea level!

On Sunday we took on the Seven Rila Lakes, from the Panichishte resort we took a ski lift up to start our navigation of the Seven Lakes. On slightly sore legs and feet, this day was a bit harder but once we reached the 7th and final lake, the views were totally worth it! This day was 5 hrs of walking; a distance of 8km; climbing and descending 550m!

A picture of 6 of the 7 lakes

Both Saturday and Sunday night were hosted in a hotel in Govedartsi, eating traditional Bulgarian food for Breakfast and Dinner!

So this totals us to 2 days, a high of 2925m, over 11 hours of walking, over 22km covered, climbing and descending 1240m and – according to our Fitbits – over 6000 calories burned each! Followed by a very quiet, sleepy drive and flight home!

A fantastic accomplishment for everyone involved – well done all! And a huge thank you to Much Better Adventures and our guide Milena for looking after us all, and giving us the encouragement when we needed it!