This hike from the mountain village Lomnica (Lomnitsa) to the Crno (Black) Ezero (Lake) is 16 km long with 1250 m ascent.
We parked the car along the road just before the village Lomnica, but there is a better parking spot a bit further next to a fountain.
Right at the start of the hike we saw a fox, that came from the direction of the village, with what looked like a chicken or other bird in its mouth. It looked at us with an expression saying “what are you gonna do about it?!”.
In the beginning it was a bit of searching for the right trail, but with the help of the GPS it wasn’t too difficult.
After about 3.5 km, at a spring, you have to leave the road and go right, freestyle up a rather steep hill. This is a shortcut, and alternatively you can take the easier but longer road via the mountain hut “Villa Negotino”. We took this longer road on the way back.
This hike is kind of a continuous ascent, and especially the last 1.5 km to the lake are pretty steep. A good reason to take a long break at the lake to recover!
As mentioned above, we took the slightly longer way downhill via the mountain hut “Villa Negotino” where we had a break at the picnic table. Near the hut we spotted bear tracks.
The last km we actually walked via the trail through the village Lomnitsa and via the mosque. However, this trail was overgrown, blocked by collapsed houses and a real pain. So I deleted this part from the GPS track and added the way that we took from the beginning of the hike.
This was a beautiful hike, but the continuous climbing and steep ascent to the lake made it a bit less attractive. It gets 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Note that for hiking in Shar Mountain National Park you need to register yourself. You also need to buy a ticket to enter certain zones by car. See here and their website for the most-up-to-date info: https://www.sarmountain.org.mk/
You can view and download the GPS track of this hike here:
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