Window on Niksic

This hike turned out to be unexpectedly physically demanding, although we allowed 9 hours for it, and returned to the car as the sky was darkening. We followed the path from the previous hike along Štit but instead of walking along the ridge we descended into the next valley and followed the valley floor to under the peaks of Lastva, Zagradac and Kapa Moračka, where we reached the waterfall after 4 hours of walking. The questionable decision was taken then to climb up a steep slope largely of scree which turned out to be around 500 metres high, which was pretty demanding and took us two hours along, with no small peril from sliding rocks. However, the view from the top of Štit was worth the exhaustion, but we still had to hurry back to the car to avoid being caught in the dark on the mountain. This hike was tough on the knees, ankles and feet, and I appreciated the fact that I had kept some level of fitness up over the spring.

After another week of torrential storms, we ventured out on a day which looked promising until the mid-afternoon. So we started at 6.30 and headed to the katun under Žurim, where we headed northwards past the ridge of Veliki and Mali Žurim towards the ridge of Štit, which involved much ascending and descending. When we reached the ridge of Štit, the massif of Lola was visible towards the north-west, and Kapa Moračka to the east. We turned eastwards and followed the top of the ridge to view the same region we had reached in the previous post/hike. This time the waterfall we had heard was clearly visible albeit from quite a distance below us. Our lunch was consumed precariously perched at the top of a sheer drop of roughly 500m. The return was not demanding, and offered the tantalising possibility that we could reach the waterfall next time.