Russ16
AH elite
You know those pictures of people walking along the spine of a mountain on a narrow trail with a steep drop off on either side? A lot of you (and my friends) see those and think “that’s awesome,” my reaction falls more into the camp of “nope” or something featuring stronger language. Why then did I find myself in the Carpathian Mountains walking along just such a trail with a 20 mph wind trying to blow me off of the steeper side. I was hunting chamois of course, something most serious hunters are familiar with but that most of my friends and acquaintances stare back blankly when I mention the name.
It all started about a year ago when I started seeing the social media posts by a gentlemen name Marius with @HUNTROMANIA. I became fascinated by the animals and the scenery. I’d always wanted to try a mountain hunt, and this seem more approachable both physically (more on that later) and financially. After some correspondence it seemed that the exact dates that I could make it didn’t seem to work out with Marius, but i was able to book a hunt through the Hunting Consortium whose owner Bob Kerr assured me that they had been doing hunts there since the end of communism in 1992, he also said that while strenuous the chamois terrains “wasn’t that bad.” I was booked for the first week of November with a day of leisure on arrival in Bucharest to shake off the jet lag followed by 4 days of hunting.
I was assured that if I got my chamois early there was plenty of sight-seeing in the area to keep me busy.
Travel and Arrival
I flew Turkish air out of Dulles with a connection in Istanbul in business class the whole way. It was my first time on Turkish and their planes are a little old but clean and well maintained. All together the flight was seamless and comfortable. The lounge in Istanbul is spacious and I had enough time on the way over to shower in the lounge which always makes me feel better.
On arrival I was met by Adrian Barbescu who has worked for Hunting Consortium since they started there in 1992. He helped me through customs with the rifle permit etc. It really wasn’t too bad but a lot of walking back and forth bringing different pieces of paper I had to sign and more carbon paper than I’ve seen in a while.
Adrian had booked me at a nice historic hotel in Bucharest. I dropped by bags and freshened up then met him downstairs about 2 hours later. He gave me a brief walking tour of downtown and took me to a lovely restaurant for an early dinner. It was traditional Romanian fare and quite good.
I went to be early and slept a solid 10-11 hours, something I never do. The next day I met Adrian and loaded my gun and luggage in his vehicle and we headed north. It was an interesting drive, you can still see the impacts of communism on the landscape. The drive took about 3 hours the last hour or so was on very narrow rural roads and the last half hour was on gravel. The “lodge” was a solid but plane small mountain hotel. Everything was simple but nice, they actually get heat from a giant wood fired furnace that provides steam for the radiators.
I met one of the guides name Bebe who took us out to check zero on the rifle. He ran a carboard box from a 12 pack of beer out to 120 yards and I put a round dead center confirming my zero. After shooting he came back and said some things to Adrian in Romanian. Adrian asked me to show him my ammo. He looked at them frowned and let off a torrent of Romanian. Adrian explained that he didn’t think the 30-06 was a good cartridge that the air here was cold and it would be “too low.” I explained that I had shot a pronghorn at 292 yards just a couple of months earlier, he shook his head muttered some more and headed back to the car.
That night we met another hunter in the lodge who was from Norway. He had just finished his hunt, taking really nice chamois each of the previous two days one male and one female. I was very encouraged.
Dinner that night was good solid Romanian lamb stew. Adrian pressured me into a sugary dessert which was a huge mistake. I never eat dessert, and it didn’t sit well with me. In fact it kept me up basically all night.
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