OFF13 Oltețului Gorge (TET Romania)

We traveled this segment down the valley, coming from the Nedeii Peak and from Vaideeni (https://2ride.eu/segment/off12-vaideeni-curmatura-oltetului/). We will describe the road the opposite, from Polovragi to Curmătura Oltețului because that is the way most will probably follow.

It is very easy to find the way because there are signs all the way to the Polovragi Cave. If it is summer or weekends the first few kilometers will be more unpleasant. It will probably be full of cars and tourists who either visit the Polovragi Cave or walk through the Oltețului Gorges. Once we pass the gorge area, the road surface gets better. You will probably only encounter a few cars and people doing barbecues. 

This road is probably one of the best forest roads in Romania in terms of tread quality. There are portions that you can easily go with 70-80 km/h. There are approximately 20 km that go uphill from 600 m altitude, up to 1200 m along the Olteț river. On this portion alternate the forest areas with the open areas from where you can admire the mountain peaks that you will soon reach. 

After these first 20 km, the road begins to climb a bit more steep, and becomes much more steep. At one point we leave the Olteț river valley and turn sharply right to the South. Then after about 1 km we have a hairpin and we return again to the North and to Curmătura Oltețului. 

We continue climbing quite steadily and go out into the alpine hollow. From here we go several hundred meters and we reach Curmătura Oltețului. 

From here there are two variants to continue: one is ahead towards Petrimanu Lake, and the second one is to take it to the right to the Heads of the Capitan Mountains on a road that goes up quite steep and is quite rough.