Mt. Borovnik, from Vucje


Despite making a couple of attempts in the snow to reach the top of Borovnik, and despite never quite seeing it as a pretty enough mountain to climb when other options are available, I decided to find out how long it would take to climb it from the ski centre at Vucje. Since the road to Vucje is regularly cleared of snow in the winter, the ski centre is an ideal place to start hikes when nowhere else is accessible. The walk from the top of Vucje to the foot of Borovnik is quite flat, although in order to avoid private property we had to divert over some rocky outcrops, which slowed us down. It took over two hours to get to under Borovnik, but then the climb was interesting, not least because of the mix of karst crisscrossed with fractures and trees/bushes. We didn't manage to get to the very top, as we wouldn't have had time, but the descent was interesting, as I chose a 'route' down which from a distance looked like a sheer drop, and was not for the fainthearted. There are no hiking paths, but we did find an animal trail on the descent which brought us more quickly to the foot of the mountain. The two-plus-hour walk back was a killer, but at least we could stop at the ski centre for a coffee and breather before driving down to Niksic. The view from the 'top' included the new windfarm on Krnovo, Zurim and a rather featureless landscape in the direction of Niksic. Anyone wishing to pick wild pomegranate, rosehip and juniper should be advised that there was an abundance of these plants all over the area at the time that we went, although the former two are best picked as late as possible in the autumn.

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