So, I moved back to Romania. I arrived on May 26th. This post is way overdue, but I am glad I finally decided to write it. I had been on the fence for a while if I should move back or not but things aligned in such a way that now was a good moment. I want to spend more time with my family and figure out what I will do in the second half of my life. Staying in the US meant I had to get a job just to make money which I am trying to avoid right now. I will be 40 this year and I want to live more intentionally and do something that is more meaningful. Or at least more in tune with my core values and natural skills. Or at least more fun and enjoyable. Or at least more outdoorsy 🙂 As you can tell, I am not even close to knowing what that will be. I have some ideas, but for now I just want to experiment and have various experiences. Soon after I got back I made a push to get in touch with some local whitewater enthusiasts. Since paddling rivers was such a big part of my stay in the US I wanted to see if I have where and with whom to do that here. It was super easy to find a crew. They are raft guides so one day I tagged along their commercial trips on an easy class 3- river. The same evening we run an upper section which was 3+ , a more intense character and some must make but relatively easy moves. I called it class Fun. The river is called Jiu and it is road side, full of trash, lots of places with rebar and other human-made debris in the river, so you need to be careful. It’s sad, because the canyon itself, while not very steep is beautiful, lush green, with lots of birds. We saw one dead tree with many blue Herron nests. It reminded me of the one we saw in Mancos when me, Jeff, Thor and Dustin did a crazy town run at high water. Back to Jiu – overall it was still super fun and the beauty of the place and excitement of the whitewater made the runs well worth it. The company was also great. The guys from Targu Mures are easy going and fun to hang out with. It was a good example for me how easy it is to interact with people from my culture. The next day we did a very different run. A small creek with a dirt road along it, but wild, clean and very very beautiful. There were a few strainers, some places where we had to scout, I portaged one mini drop but after I saw Dani the kayaker run it I regretted not running it. The river is called Lăpușnicul Mare and it flows from the Retezat mountains – one of the most beautiful mountains of Romania. The water was crystal clear and pretty high for that creek. The highest these guys ever ran it. And it was fun, lots of fun – see the video – click this link.

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After these 2 days of paddling since I was already there I decided to do a at least a day hike in the Retezat mountains. The forecast was not that good, but I lucked out. There was still a lot of snow in the high country which meant I could not do the loop I intended since I didn’t have the right gear and it got a bit sketchy at some point when I was traversing pretty long and steep snow covered slopes. But the glissading was super fun on the sections I did. I also saw a phenomena that was new to me: lots of frogs on the snow. They were pretty numb and I could get really close to take photos and a lot of them were having some sort of slow-mo sex 🙂 But frogs, that many, on snow? That was weird but beautiful in a way. You can see in some photos the black dots on the surface of the snow – those are the frogs. On my way down I met a lot of people, but until I started descending I had the whole place to myself which is rare around here as this is one of the top destinations of hikers in that area.

I should really make a bigger effort to write these when they happen when I have the details still fresh in my mind. The next phase of this trip will be in the next post 🙂