Hiking through the wild heart of the Western Balkans

The experiences of the past weeks are going through my mind while next to me Rezarta Bare is mastering the last steps up to the ridge. Based in Albania, she is an advisor for a tourism project at the German development cooperation organization GIZ, developing the High Scardus Trail together with colleagues from North Macedonia and Kosovo. She has offered to join me on the hike on the last two stages of the trail.  

I can't help but think back to the two shepherds, who on a rainy day in the Šar mountains invited me into their simple shelter so that I could warm up by the fire with Turkish coffee and homemade rakija, a local grape brandy that inevitably builds friendships. Or to the farmer in the Korab Mountains, who whipped up a stew of vegetables and sheep's cheese for me seemingly out of nowhere in his simple accommodation at almost 2,000 meters, before forcing on me half a loaf of freshly baked bread and his last apples from the valley as provisions for the next day.

Rezarta is right, these experiences will stick with me for a long time.

One of the biggest challenges from the very beginning, Rezarta explains, has been to create the necessary infrastructure so that hikers can walk the trail safely and with a basic level of comfort. "In some villages, overnight accommodation first had to be built, and around 300 kilometers of trail had to be marked. If it hadn't been for the help of so many guides and local tour operators right from the start, this would never have become a reality." 

This might be one of the things that impressed me the most about hiking the High Scardus Trail: How well the project walks the fine line between new infrastructure and maintaining the authentic character of the regions it passes through.

To coordinate all this, the project teamed up with the Austrian consultancy, Trail Angels, who have experience developing long-distance trails such as the Alpe-Adria Trail or the Lynx Trail. The result is a total of 20 varied stages that lead from the mountain valleys in the border region between northern Macedonia and Kosovo over Mount Korab, the highest peak in the Western Balkans at 2,764 meters, almost to the Greek border in the south.

In Ohrid, the picturesque city with its historic old town on the western shore of the lake, we meet Anica Palazzo, a colleague of Rezarta's at GIZ in North Macedonia. Anica was among the first people to propose the High Scardus Trail and has been coordinating the project from the very beginning.

"We wanted to create opportunities for the people in the region and we knew a trail could do this. We had the experience of supporting the development of the Peaks of the Balkans trail”, she explains. This 192 km long circular hiking trail turned the remote and forgotten Prokletije Mountains into a known and popular hiking destination, attracting tens of thousands of outdoor tourists to the region every year. “We hope that the High Scardus Trail will have a similar. if not bigger success”, says Anica. "The trail is longer, connects five mountain massifs, passes through six national parks, and takes the hiker through beautiful towns and a fascinating cultural landscape."

We are standing outside her little house, on the terrace with a view over Lake Ohrid, and are waving at Naum Dzajkoski, a shepherd who is usually out with his animals on the high meadows on the slopes of the National Park. Today he brings Anica fresh sheep dung for her vegetable garden. He offers us a ride in his beat-up car to the village of Velestovo higher up the mountain, where today's section of the trail begins.

Arriving at his small farm, he presents three shot glasses and a bottle of rakija and reports in fluent English that there are fewer and fewer young people interested in traditional shepherding these days. "That's why it's so important for me to talk about my work, about the traditional cheese dairy and the landscape conservation we do. Hikers can come by my place and I show them my sheep, my work, and they can taste my cheese and enjoy some refreshments before their hike."

I ask Rezarta what the trail means to her personally. "The biggest success is that we have brought together people and stakeholders from all three countries to jointly create an experience that makes this incredible heritage accessible to visitors from all over the world," she says after a moment's reflection.

“Not long ago, Albania was a country closed off from the world with massive surveillance on the borders. Today, travelers from all over the world love how open, and friendly, yet still relatively unexplored this destination is. Everyone who visits us, and who hikes the High Scardus Trail, contributes to the further development of this region. It's a real blessing - for the hikers and for all the people here."