Moldoveanu Peak

Where is Moldoveanu Peak?

Moldoveanu Peak is part of the Făgăraș Mountains, Southern Carpathians.

You will find it in: Romania.

Summit: 45.600° N, 24.738° E

The story behind it

The Făgăraș range is one long wall of hard, grey crystalline rock, and Moldoveanu is the highest tooth on that wall, reached only after hours on a narrow ridge with steep ground on both sides. Ice-age glaciers scooped round hollows into the slopes, and many of them now hold small clear lakes that stay cold even in August, while below them the grass is full of gentians and bellflowers. Shepherds bring sheep up to the high meadows in summer, sheepdogs guard the flocks, and their huts are often the only buildings for hours of walking. Chamois graze near the ridge, marmots dig between the boulders, and bears and lynx live in the beech and spruce forests further down. Weather changes fast up here: warm sun can turn into hail and thunder within an hour, so walkers watch the sky carefully.

Find it on the globe

Moldoveanu Peak is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.