Mali i Munellës

From the distance, Mali i Munellës looks like a giant tooth, like a molar sticking out of the gums. That is, of course, if you know where Munelle is, and from where to look for it.

Munelle is the highest point of Lezhe Region. It sits between Fushe Arrëz and the new Autobahn connecting Rreshen and Kukes. As the highway runs close to the Fan river in the valley, and everybody is rushing to break another speed record, hardly anyone will afford the one or two glimpses to be had of Munelle (to the left of the highway if you are going to Kukes). Even if you go to Gjegjan and on to Fushe Arrëz, you may only have one or two more sights of Munelle. In fact the best view of Munelle, albeit from the distance, is from Burrel. From there, Munelle appears to be what it is: a single isolated mountain with a seemingly flat summit plateau.

While Munelle seems to be hiding from everyone's view, it affords great vistas to the mountains all around (and can as easily be made out from these mountains, too). Provided, of course, that the weather is fine. When we climbed it, haze obscured the Albanian Alps, which otherwise would have seemed very close.

To keep with the tooth analogy, Munelle would require many fillings. The summit plateau is strewn with deep dolines (craters), making movement less than straight forward. Neither google earth nor any map gives an idea of the many summits and deep holes of the Munelle plateau. Among all of this up and down, Munelle has two rather distinct summits. The higher is shown on some maps as Maja e Kryqit.

The trail from the south may not be the shortest trail to (either of) the summits, and possibly not the easiest. We heard that there was a more "regular" trail from the east, and people from Fushe Arrëz and Puka thought that a trail exists from the North. Having surveyed the summit plateau, we neither found another evident trail nor another obvious route. The trailhead starts at a logging road (see GPS data). A few hundred meters along the road, before the trailhead, there is a shepherd's hut, with water. The hut was vacated the same morning for the winter, and we camped there.

The trail is not very long (roundtrip 8.4 kilometers), and elevation gain is modest (769 Meter for the return trip), but route finding might be problematic when visibility is poor. The ascent from the trailhead to the ridge is very steep, and is best undertaken in dry weather.