Roumanian Winter 1939-1940
Part 2 of 3
H. G. Watts
Sinaia
Sinaia was the playground of fashionable Bucharest. Besides King Carol’s country residence, Pelesh Castle, there were several large hotels, a casino, the teashops where nostalgia could be nurtured on hot chocolate and creamy cakes.
The village lies in a steep-sided narrow valley, and there are few good ski-slopes near Sinaia itself. For practice we used to climb for an hour to a clearing in the woods, Poiana Regale. Another hour and a half carrying ski up a steep and rocky path beyond this brought us to the Cabana Regale Carol II, a military hut on the track leading to Pestera in the Islomitsa valley. From this point there are three god tours; south to Varful cu Dor, 5580ft, westwards across the high ground and down to Pestera; or north to Omul, 8209ft, one of the highest peaks in the Carpathians.
We more frequently took the easier but longer three hour climb direct to Varful cu Dor. The S.K. V. hut, about 500ft below the peak, was rather like the old Parsenn hut before it was rebuilt. The slope from the summit to the hut was used by the locals as a slalom course. The run of 2000ft from the hut down to the tree line, where the road from Sinaia ends, is shallow gullies and ridges, somewhat akin to the Lauberhorn – Scheidegg run, and lovely on the right day, but with little protection from the wind, often spoilt by unbreakable crust. The rest of the run to the village was either down the road, fast going in frosty weather, or steep, rough and difficult wood-nrnning which we did not attempt.
We did the round trip from Sinaia to Omul and down to Busteni, a village 5 miles higher up the railway then Sinaia, on the last Sunday in April under glorious conditions. Three hours of climbing got us to the hut on the Varful cu Dor at 11 O’clock, and over a glass of wine and a map we decided it was a fine day to do the 13 Km to Omul, and run down to Busteni by the Valea Corbului. We made the mistake of consulting the man who looked after the hut, and had to listen to about ten minutes of true ‘nu se poate” (Roumanian for it is impossible): There wouldn’t be any snow – It was a long way and would take six hours – We shouldn’t be allowed to go down the Valea Cerbului as there was a concourse de ski on the morrow. We wondered how a concourse was compatible with absence of snow and left the hut at 11.30.
Half an hour’s climb brought us to the Munte Fuinica, 6900ft, from which we had 1000ft of running over perfect spring snow, to the Cabana Pegele Carol II. Then came on hour’s steady climb across the plateau behind Caraiman, a mountain of steep icy crags, with an 80ft stone cross on the top, a memorial to the 1941/18 war. We had another shoit run after passing the head of the Valsa Tepilor; then the 2V% hour climb to the hut on the summit of Omul. We reached this 4x/2 hours after leaving the Varful cu Dor. The last half hour was in deep snow across the steep slope at the head of the Valea Cerbului.
The hut, Casa Mihai Haret, was run by the T.C.R so they were in no hurry to serve us and we had to wait half an hour for soup and a bottle of wine. This was annoying because while we were waiting the sun went off the valley and the spring snow crusted up for our run down. The top 2000ft of the Valea Cerbului consists of long steep slopes, perfect for a long schuss under good conditions. After that the valley becomes narrower but rather less steep and we were glad to find that the snow had not crusted at the lower altitude. This is undoubtedly one of the finest runs in the district. The way through the woods at the bottom of the valley leads beneath the northern bastions of Varful Castila, pinnacles of rock rising straight out of the ground like the Dolomites, and surely wonderful places for rock-climbing. We calculated the distance from Sinaia to Busteni, via Varful cu Dor and Omul, to be about 30 Km.
We never explored the country to the east of Sinaia on ski, though one day early in May after the snow had gone I climbed on foot with Robin Hankey, First Secretary at the Legation, to the Varful Vornicul, 5400ft. We reached it up a side valley leaving the main road 5 miles south of Sinaia, and found good slopes at the top, with plenty of scope for exploration at some future date.
Predeal
The village of Predeal is 10 miles north of Sinaia, and lies at the top of the pass, 3400 ft, where the road and railway go over into Transylvania. Until 1918 it was the last Roumanian village before crossing the frontier into Austria-Hungary, and even in 1940 the change in the look of the houses and the people in the 5 miles between Predeal and Timisul de Sus gave one the feeling of having crossed an ethnographic boundary.
We were told in Bucharest that Predeal was a marvellous skiing resort with wonderful practice slopes and even a ski-lift, but we hadn’t then become wise to the native delight in hyperbole. The village had that untidy, shghtly unstable look which characterises so many Roumanian villages, a look with which we in England are now becoming increasingly familiar, thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning.
The villages in the Regat only really look as if God had put them there during the lovely but all too brief fortnight when the blossom is out.
The ski-lift operated over the 500 ft from the bottom of the nursery slopes to the restaurant at the top. “Operated” was quite often a euphemism. The contraption consisted of endless rope to which, to the accompaniment of much loquacity and gesticulation, the victim was attached by 9ft of tow-rope, which dragged him upwards by a belt round his behind. The tow-rope usually came off halfway up, where the endless rope went round a sharp bend. When this happened the victim fell over, and traffic was delayed for twenty minutes because other people coming up fell over him, and it took a long time and a lot of talking for the man in the black woolly hat who worked the thing to unravel the heap and deal out the blame to everybody’s satisfaction. The lift was made by Brown-Boveri and was a noble effort, but we found it quicker to walk.
The best skiing at Predeal was on a hill of about 5500ft called Diham, two hours climb south-westwards from the village. With plenty of trees on it, and higher mountains fairly near, the
Diham gets more protection from wind and sun than does the higher ground above Sinaia, so the snow is often in better condition. There were two huts, one Roumanian, the other German, about one kilometre apart. The German one belonged to the Reichsdeutscher colony in Bucharest.
There is quite a broad stretch of country at the top of the Diham, and although it was popular there was always plenty of room. There are numerous short runs offering a wide variety of types of snow, hard or soft, steep or gentle. The run back to Predeal is by way of another hut, the Forban, – memorable for poor heating and much garlic – through wide glades between woods, and fMshing with a mile of wood path leading to a “carciuma” (Tavern, strangely the word is the same in Romany) noted for its hot tsuica.
We found Predeal quite a good place for practice, or for short runs when the weather was poor, but it lacked comfortable hotels and restaurants, so we stayed in Sinaia or Brasov and came to Predeal by rail or car. There was however a good hotel called the “Gaiser” at Timisul de Sus, but it was run by a German and nearly always full of them It was here that Robin Hankey and another Enghshman nearly got involved in a scrap on New Year’s night 1941. This was after the Germans had occupied Roumauia, but before our Legation had been withdrawn. There were 80 Germans in the hotel, and a handful of other nationalities. At midnight the Germans all sang “Deutschland Uber Alles” and the “Horst Wessel bed”. Robin and the other Enghshman succeeded in collecting six Roumanians, one Swiss and two various and sang “Auld Lang Syne” in English, Roumanian and Schweizerdeutsch. When we got back to then table they found a forbidding looking Nazi throwing then glasses of wine one by one into a corner and saying that was what the Germans were bound to do to England. On being told he’d better learn to swim first he accused them of stealing his revolver, and they were only saved from having to fight then way out by the proprietor, the jolly type of south German with a red face, who pacified the mob in their own tongue, saying “Nein, nein, bitte heute ist Neujahr, wir sind alle Freunden hier”.
Actually in the huts and on the hills generally we found the Germans perfectly civil, and indeed ready to help with spare ski-points and straps in the event of trouble. Not even Hitler could kill the fiiendship of high places.
“Look upward: thought, unhindered, soars apart
in still pursuit upon a loftier course. Climb but a little hill: you too may find
the clouds ebb surely from your clearer mind. “
Geoffrey Winthrop Young