Brasov - Tâmpa Peak, Postăvaru Mountains

Hike or run, take your pick

Brasov - Șaua Tâmpa - Tâmpa Peak

Introduction

I'm in a position to report about something else, which I'm going to categorize as hiking.

Location and access

Tâmpa summit (960 m alt.) - everyone knows it, because it overlooks Brasov and because there on the top are mounted those big letters with the name of the city and because up there, you go up and down the cable car, thus being a very popular area.

Tampa Peak is part of the Postavaru Massif.

Access is from the promenade area under Tampa, near the fortress wall. From here there are 3 ways to get to Vf. Tampa plus cable car.

Route map

(click on objectives for extended version)

Technical box

Length: 2 km

Duration: 1 h 15 min

Marking: blue stripe to Saua Tampa and then yellow triangle

Difficulty: medium

Start 17:31, Finish 18:00

Level difference: +380 m

Minimum altitude: 590 m

Maximum altitude: 940 m

1. Brasov (cable car station) - Șaua Tâmpei

We tackled the easier route on the ascent. It is the one on the right as you face the mountain and it is marked on the first segment, the ascent, with a blue stripe. It says 45 - 50 minutes to Saua Tampei. The blue band continues up to Vârful Postavaru (1799 m alt.), but it is not today's destination in this article.

17:36 Start. Well, to be fair I have the start a bit further down, in the city on Michael Weiss St., about 700 meters before the signpost, which indicates the entrance on the path.

We climb through the forest. The path is quite wide, at the beginning it passes a wire fence and quickly comes out into a small clearing for a short while. The last climb, the most demanding, is again through the forest, on the wide, clearly marked path.

signposts

Climb

2. Șaua Tâmpei - Vârful Tâmpa (cable car descent station)

17:50. The saddle of the Ta Tape. 14 minutes instead of 45 as it said on the indicator seems very good, but it's not so, because I admit that the last third I couldn't run, due to the slope and resources that I didn't dose well, so I took it at a walk. From Saua Tampei we change the marker to follow. According to the signpost from the clearing in the saddle, 30 min on the yellow triangle towards Vârful Tâmpa peak and the cable car, upper station. The path is a poorly contoured one until you actually enter from the ridge road, which is glimpsed due to the good perspective. Then in the ridge I run on a wide forest road on which any 4×4 could drive.

Tâmpa Mica Peak (926 m alt.), Tâmpa Peak (960 m alt.) and the lookout point are slightly to the left of the trail. Immediately after the branch coming from them, there is a path called "Serpentine Trail", marked with a red triangle, which goes down under the cable car to the promenade. It's the medium difficulty trail of the 3. I just pointed it out here, but I didn't have any business with it. I continued up the ridge, up the yellow triangle, and up the easy climb up to the choscurile and the antenna at the cable car station.

Time 18:00 I marked 10 min running instead of the estimated 30 min walking. Comci comca. Near the cable car station there are several signs informing us that we are in the Mount Tampa nature reserve and about the options to go down the "Serpentine Trail" on the red triangle for 1 hour (1,5 hours ascent) and the "Gabony's Steps" on the yellow triangle also for 1 hour (1,5 hours ascent), the slightly more difficult route, which I will choose in the linked article. Finally, here is an older panoramic picture of Brasov seen from the Tâmpa, from the cable car.

The saddle of Tampa

creasta

Tâmpa summit

Conclusion

I was glad to meet enough people on the route, including 2 runners. Of the 3 options, this one is the easiest and I recommend it to the heavier climbers. I didn't care if I made it to the top before the few people queuing for the cable car down.

All the best!

Steps: