The Accursed Mountains or "here be wolves"

The Accursed Mountains are a hidden gem in mostly undiscovered Albania.
The classic 3 day trip deep in the heart of the mountains involves a boat ride, several minibus journeys and a full day hike.
Having said that Albania is relatively undiscovered, it does have facilities for travellers although maybe not at the, er, standard of other more developed areas.
But is very refreshing to be in a place that is still a little rough around the edges.
Mind you, we were not there in peak season, just sneaking in at the end of the open season for the walk.
The path closes in November as it gets a little snowy up there!

The journey starts in Shkoder in the north-west of Albania.
We found it a little difficult to get information about this journey. the sweet receptionist in out hotel didn't know much about it.
And we had a very entertaining time at the visitors information office with a very enthusiastic girl who couldn't read a map!
It seems that the hostels may be a better place to get information, but in reality it's not hard to just do it yourself.
Our hotel booked a minibus pickup for 6am and the ticket included the 2 hour drive to the ferry up Lake Koman, the 3 hour boat trip and the 1 hour minibus to Valbone.

We hadn't booked any accommodation, thinking it would be easy to find somewhere.
When we got to the end of the lake one of our fellow travellers was met by a guest house owner and he said the place was highly recommended by his hostel in Shkodar so we tagged along.

We ended up here with a delightful family in their half finished house and almost completely finished guest house.

Valbone itself is a long stretched out community along the valley. We  stayed about 7 kms from the end of the road/start of the walk. We were grateful that our host gave us a lift the next morning to the start of the walking track. This is also 4WD track which goes for another couple of kms.

There is a sign at the start and then the track goes along a wide dry river bed. It was rather cool at first as we were in shadow.
But the colours were stunning! Blue sky white rocks russet and golden trees and greenery.
The peaks are magnificent.

Then the trail leave the valley floor and goes up. And up. And up.
In places quite steeply up.

Until we got to a cafe.
Where our Swiss buddies were drinking coffee and we had some musical entertainment from GC and Adrian.

The cafe uses the natural spring water to cool the drinks.

Then it's up again through beautiful forest, snowing autumn leaves when the wind blew.
Until we are clear of the trees and we can see what we think is the pass, up, up, up.

At the very narrow pass there is a magnificent view on both sides - back down the Valbone valley and into the Theth valley - our destination.

Then it is all downhill from there!

More beautiful autumn forest, a lovely grassy meadow and another timely cafe.

After nearly 8 hours we reach the village of Theth, where we stay in a guest house organised by our hosts from Valbone.
Thankfully the hosts son picks us up before the village which saves us about an hour of walking.

The next day minibuses leave Theth for Shkoder at 1pm, and it takes about 3 hours to get there.
On the way pout of the valley we looked across to the range we had crossed the day before and we can see the pass - the lowest point in the photo below.