Prokletije

Prokletije means the accursed ones, and the name is the first honest guidebook. This is the southern end of the Dinaric Alps gone vertical: the most glaciated range of the Balkans in the ice ages and the only one that kept a few pocket glaciers into the present, a labyrinth of cirques and rock walls shared three ways between Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo. The Montenegrin park — the country's fifth and newest, declared in 2009 — takes in the range's northern valleys above Plav and Gusinje, and its crest carries the state's roof: Zla Kolata, 2,534 metres, on the Albanian border, a summit higher than anything in Durmitor though far fewer people could name it.

The two valleys that organise the park could hardly differ more in character while sharing a skyline. Grbaja, southwest of Gusinje, is a flat-floored glacial trench under the Karanfili — "the carnations," a group of rock towers and faces that gave Yugoslav alpinism its hardest early routes and still collect most of the range's climbers — with the grass-topped viewpoints of Volušnica and Talijanka opposite, each an afternoon's walk up for the classic full-frontal view of the walls. Ropojana, the next valley south, runs deeper into the karst toward the Albanian border at Theth: a valley of vanished water, where the river sinks and resurfaces — the Oko Skakavice spring pool an improbable glacial blue, the Grlja waterfall thundering in a slot canyon just below — and the pass at its head was for centuries the smugglers' and shepherds' road between Plav and the Shala valley. Above Babino polje on the park's eastern side, Hridsko jezero sits in forest at nearly 1,970 metres; folklore holds it a lake of luck — mountain fairies bathed in it, and visitors still leave a small token in exchange for the wish.

The cultural seam is as layered as the geology. Plav and Gusinje are old market towns of the Sandžak edge, mosques and kulas — fortified stone tower-houses — under Orthodox monastery country downvalley, and the sixteen springs of Ali-pašini izvori pour out of the mountain's foot by Gusinje in a single icy meadow. The wildlife takes advantage of the emptiness: bear and chamois are established, the lynx is plausibly present on the Albanian side, and the flora — over 1,700 species recorded, with Balkan endemics dense on the high ledges — is the richest of any Montenegrin park for its area.

What's worth knowing before you go

Gusinje is the valley base for Grbaja and Ropojana, Plav for the lakes and the eastern side; both are a long, slow drive from Podgorica over the Albanian border at Grnčar (usually the faster route) or through the Lim valley. Accommodation is guesthouses and the mountain huts in Grbaja; this is the least developed of the five parks, and the trail network, though improving, still expects map sense and full water bottles — the karst drinks every stream.

The Peaks of the Balkans trail, the 192-kilometre circuit through all three countries' share of the range, passes through, and its cross-border permits are the practical detail to know: they take days, not minutes, to arrange, and summit days on border peaks like Zla Kolata formally require them. July to September is the window; snow lingers in the high cirques past June. The connoisseur's hour is evening at Lake Plav with the whole Karanfili skyline reddening upvalley — the view that explains, better than any trail, why this range collected legends instead of roads.