Dajti

Peaks: Mali i Dajtit (1613m), Mali i Tujanit (1524m)

Area: Skanderbeg, Albania

This range of high wooded hills dominates Tirana and is served by a newish (2005) Austrian cable car, one of Europe's longest, that leaves the far eastern suburbs and heads up to a small plateau. From here, however, it is still a fair trek to the summits which makes them worthwhile objectives. There are no maps, but there was a stylised drawing of peaks and paths at the bottom cable car. After some very mixed weather and a lot of rain, this morning dawned clear and sunny, the best day of my week in Albania. The bus system is rather opaque, but I got on the right one from the city centre and worked out the closest stop, getting one of the first cars up at 9am. I found a signpost to the Qafa a Qershise col and followed that through the woods until an arrow sent me west. This felt counter intuitive but followed a delightful level path through the beech woods so I followed it. After a while it became obvious it was wrong, so I retraced my steps and eventually found the real route to the col, which proved direct and comfortable, though relentless, and gained the lovely col. This was sun-drenched, strewn with limestone outcrops and little alpine meadows. To the right, Dajti, to the left, another shapely peak, Tujanit. I went up the former first, up a series of tracks that became quite snowy as I ascended: an inch or two in places, and icy in the shady spots. At the top of the track, views opened out at a bizarre listening post, presumably a Hoxha legacy, a dilapidated building with dozens of satellite dishes. Annoyingly, the marked trail ended here too, but it was well below the true summit, which then proved a challenge to reach. The old buildings appeared to be manned, so I sneaked away to very steep snowy slopes which led to an open limestone gully with mild scrambling which gained the summit ridge, quite nicely defined. Superb views finally opened out as the treeline was definitively left: down to Tirana and the Adriatic, and east to the interior hills, snow covered at the Macedonian border. Further north, I think the Albanian Alps were visible as another line of white. I found an easier way down, then headed back to the col before taking the comfortable track up Tujanit. This had a wide open summit, almost circular, with great views north over the spectacularly blue Bovilla lake to the mountains above Kruje I hoped to visit soon. Further east, river valleys led up to the snowy peaks of Gropa-Bize-Martanesh. After spending a while admiring the view, I headed down to the col and then back to the balcony for an iced coffee.