Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

It was still dark when the smell of coffee filled our log-cabin mountain hut on the
Via Dinarica Trail, a hiking route that traverses the western half of the Balkan
Peninsula in southeastern Europe. We were in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
Sutjeska National Park, two days into a week-long, cross-border trek. The country’s
tallest peak, the 7828ft (2386m) Mt Maglic, and dense forests separated us from
Montenegro. As the aroma of the roasted beans reached our bunks, the world here
– the valleys, rivers, chamois, goats, villages, sheep, atonal cowbells, farms,
vineyards, roosters, olive groves and kaleidoscopic wildflower meadows crowding
the landscape – also seemed to spring to life like a Balkans-wide alarm clock
clanging on a bedside table.
Morning coffee on the trail is sacred everywhere, but nowhere so much as the
Balkans and the Via Dinarica, which links summits and the most isolated pockets of
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and