Busteni and Omu Peak MTB

Route Information

Stats: 26km and 1038 metres climbing (Hard Route)

Refreshments & Where to Stay: Busteni is a good mountain resort for facilities, and nearby Brasov is excellent for all of your needs, and you can book a great place to stay and enjoy the superb trails nearby. It’s a tough mountain route, so please take sufficient drink and snacks with you, although mountain cabins will have options, they are limited.

Character

This area is wild and beautiful, with natural rugged forest single track trails in the forests. The route is suggested with a gondola start to make the most of the rolling trails and to really enjoy the steep and technical descending.

Route

1. This is a route into mountain forests, so you really do need to follow the gps file to stay safe. There are some technical sections and you need stay on course.

2. Take the Gondola from Busteni to the Bucegi mountain tops and then pick up the trail signed to Omu Peak. After a short distance you will see  the best known rock formations on the Bucegi Plateau: the Babele and the Sphinx. These megaliths are modelled mainly by wind erosion. The Sphinx, named after its shape that resembles a man’s head, is 8 meters high and 12 meters wide.

3. The rough but wide track road continues about 2 km and at the mid-distance, it goes by the Salvamont Centre Busteni. You leave this road that goes to the Costila Relay and continue on the large path, marked with yellow line, road that goes on a level curve.

4. In a short time you will arrive at the Cerdac, the place where the path splits in two. On the left, the winter trail goes up and the summer trail continues straight ahead. The summer path is exposed and narrow, under the path there is the Valea Cerbului Steep. The track is rocky and tough and care should taken, but at the 5.8km point, you will reach the Omu Hut.

5. From the Omu Chalet you follow the red line marking, on the old road of the frontier guards, the former frontier path between the Transylvania and the Vechiul Regat. The next few km, towards the Strunga Saddle, the trail is rough and less frequented by tourists, but has excellent sections of technical mountain singletrack as it drops down to a track junction at 11.8km.

6. Climb back towards the gondola station above Busteni, but this time, then take the track right, along the edge, to the 17.6km point, turning down towards the Piatra Arsa Cabin, passing this and continuing down passing the Cantonul Jepi cabin too.

7. At the 20km point, the track steepens and becomes technical at times as you enter the forests again and weave your way down the mountain back to Busteni on technical forest tracks. There are track junctions that can take you towards the water cascade, but avoiding this track will help to  avoid the tourists on foot.