Macedonia Mountain Mission

Some of Europe’s wildest and most beautiful mountains rise in the Balkans. The peninsula itself takes its name from a range of hills in Bulgaria and the region’s topography has propelled the fragmentation of peoples and cultures that gave the English language a new word: balkanisation.

The highest of the Balkan peaks are concentrated in Macedonia. I mean historical Macedonia - the territory in the south of the peninsula that was staked out by Philip II from the fourth century BC, and then expanded massively eastwards by his son, Alexander the Great.

That expansion was short-lived and after centuries under Ottoman Turk rule, Macedonia was carved up in the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, its morsels fed to land-hungry Bulgaria, Greece and the new republic of Yugoslavia. A tiny sliver went to Albania.

As Yugoslavia dissolved in the 1990s its share of Macedonia became an independent state: the imaginatively titled “former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia” - or just plain Macedonia to all but the Greeks, for whom the use of this name is an affront to the ancient Hellenic kingdom (as is the adoption by the Slavic Macedonians of Greek Alexander as a national hero.)

In September my home-town's football team played a Uefa cup match in modern Macedonia's capital, Skopje. I used the fixture as an excuse to visit the region and explore some of old Macedonia’s mountains, including Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods (on which, more in the next instalment.) The game was a dull draw but the mountains more than compensated.

My plan was first to climb Yugoslav Macedonia’s highest point: Korab, altitude 2,753 metres. But the peak is shared with Albania and permits are needed to hike in this sensitive border area – the reason being it is not long since tensions here between Muslim Albanians and Orthodox Christian Macedonians almost added to the tally of more recent Balkan wars. At late notice it isn’t an option.

So instead I consider Mount Tito, the second-highest peak, named after the wartime resistance leader who is still widely revered in the former Yugoslavia as the man who stood up to Stalin and created an independent communist system with a human face.

But that trip would take too much time for my tight schedule. So I settle for breaking in my legs on a much more accessible peak: Mount Vodno, a lumbering 1,000-metre hill that dominates the southern sweep of Skopje.

Vodno has become a focus of controversy since the Macedonian government began building a gigantic 66-metre "millennium cross" on its summit in 2002. To some Muslims in the north of Skopje, across the river Vardar in the pin-cushion of minarets that is the old Turkish quarter, Vodno’s Christian cross is a mighty and constant provocation. The medieval stone bridge linking the city’s two halves is daubed with graffiti demanding rights for the ethnic Albanian minority.

Before booting up for the hike I go to buy some walking maps, for this and future Macedonian mountain trips. My guidebook says a new range of high-quality, large-scale topographic maps is gradually being published by the national cartographic institute. But a frustrating trawl of Skopje’s best book and map shops reveals nothing. Several knowledgeable staff insist no such things exist.

Eventually I find myself in an anonymous Skopjan suburb, at the cartographic institute itself (address helpfully provided by the guidebook, whose author is evidently as obsessive as me about maps). It’s soon clear that visits like mine are rare. But after a couple of administrative cul-de-sacs, I am led to a portly and efficient-looking official who confirms the maps do exist and are for sale.

The transaction is not simple, however. To complete the purchase I’m told I have to fill in a request form, be escorted to a bank by an institute staff member, make a money transfer, and then return to pick up the goods.

I sigh. I’m already eating into hiking time and imagine bank queues and taxi rides draining the rest of the day’s light. So I pass, and decide to do Macedonia mapless this time. “Why don’t you just sell them in shops?” I ask before leaving. Why make it so difficult to get hold of these things? “It’s our policy,” says the official blankly. I resist the urge to argue.

Perhaps I’m being hard on the institute. Maybe, when the new map series is complete, they’ll launch a marketing blitz that leaves no Macedonian unaware of his country’s geodetic assets. But I can’t help feeling that I’m facing the remnants of a bureaucratic cadre for whom knowledge was power and the instinct was to hold, not diffuse.

The two-hour hike from Skopje’s southern suburbs to Vodno’s summit is pleasant; but the concrete and steel cross gets uglier as it grows bigger. Soon a new viewing platform will grant visitors a peerless panoramic view of the city. For now the nearby mountain hut does a great herbal tea and displays photos of Macedonian mountain-folk proudly planting their new and distinctive sunburst flag on various world peaks.

The following day I travel south to Lake Ohrid, an ancient and remote body of water that was the crucible of Slav orthodox Christianity and is now Macedonia’s Riviera. It’s a compelling place of castles, temples and amphitheatres that will one day draw many more tourists than today.

Here I manage a ridge walk along the mountains lining the lake’s eastern shore, taking in the 1,985-metre Galičica peak and enjoying breathtaking views over Ohrid and the neighbouring lake Prespa, both of which are shared with Albania.

The ridge path begins at the crest of a mountain pass between the two lakes. The road over the pass divides Macedonia from Albania. I hitch a lift to the trailhead with a Macedonian eager to show off his new toy – a second-hand Range Rover. He warns me not to veer from the path, unless I want to risk being shot at by Albanian border patrollers. I can’t tell if he’s joking.

On the way over the pass we encounter Mathias and Céline, an inspiring pair of thirty-somethings taking three years out from modern life to walk to Mongolia from their native Switzerland. They are four months into the hike.

Mathias has been lugging their gear through Europe on an ingenious harnessed trailer. But in Albania, with the Balkans looming, he bought a donkey (with passport) to take over the job. All three are lunching at the roadside in the afternoon sun, watching paragliders ride the lakeside thermals. They look utterly content.

Within a couple of days both of us will be passing into Greece. But I curse the fact that while their adventure will then take them into Turkey, Iran, India and beyond, within days mine will be over, and I’ll be heading back to desk life.