Nemira Ridge Reserve

The Nemira Ridge is a Natura 2000 site — 3,509 hectares with 11 habitat types: beech woods, spruce forests, alpine scrub and peat bogs. It is the kind of mountain where nature still makes the rules.

Flora

This is where Saxifraga cymbalaria grows — a saxifrage that, in Romania, is found only in the Nemira Mountains. Also on the ridge: edelweiss, the emblem of the high mountains.

Wildlife

The reserve shelters 19 protected mammal species — brown bear, lynx, wolf, red deer — and 103 bird species, among them the capercaillie. More discreetly: the common adder and the fire salamander.

The Nemira Pools

High up, just below the ridge, the forest hides the Nemira Pools — pockets of still water with sunken trunks and mossy banks, remnants of the massif's peat bogs. They are among the quietest places in Nemira and a natural stop on the ridge hike that descends towards the tail of the lake.

How to explore it

Along the officially marked trails that climb towards Nemira Mare Peak, Țiganca Peak and Șaua Nemirei — four of them start in Sălătruc, right by the guesthouse. The summits rise above 1,300 metres (Nemira Mare, 1,649 m).

Common-sense rules in the reserve

• Stay on the marked paths; do not pick protected plants.
• You are in bear country: make noise on overgrown paths, leave no food behind, head down before dark.
• Your rubbish goes home with you.
• Dogs on a lead — for the small wildlife's sake, and for theirs.