The valley under the Piatra Craiului — pasture, beech forest and the Bârsa. The meeting ground for the wildlife programme; the hides inside it are not mapped.
The basin under the Piatra Craiului: the Bârsa running out of the gorge, hay meadows on the slopes above it, and beech and spruce forest from the treeline up. Forty-five minutes from Brașov, and the ground the whole wildlife programme works on.
We do not publish them, and we will not. A hide that is on the internet gets visited by people who have not been briefed, and the animals pay for that first. Once a location is out there it cannot be taken back.
You are collected in Brașov and driven in. The rest — where you are walking, and how far — is covered in the briefing before you set off.
An evening in a hide on wild ground. No baiting. Sightings are never guaranteed and we will not pretend otherwise.
An early start with scopes provided. Best in September and early October.
Autumn evenings when the stags are roaring and you can hear them across the valley. Heard far more often than seen.
A full day working to the light, at the pace photography actually needs.
A morning on what the animals leave behind — prints, scat, rub trees, hair on wire. No hide, and nothing to wait for.
A few weeks each autumn the stags roar, and a still valley carries it for a kilometre. When the rut happens in the Carpathians, where to stand, how to behave at the forest edge, and why hearing it is the point.