Video Strange places revealed by a new mountain road. Ice cave, as in “a journey to the center of the earth”

A hard-to-reach road from the end of the Jiu Valley is being modernized, and the new road will bring out of isolation some strange wild places at the foot of the Retezat and Vâlcan mountains. The Ice Cave, a little-known place on the new route, is completely out of the ordinary.

The hard-to-reach dirt and stone road that crosses Valea de Pești in Hunedoara, going up from the foot of the Valea de Pești dam to Cheile Sohodolului in Gorj, has been under construction since April and will be modernized.

The new road, over five kilometers long, goes up the right bank of the reservoir and, even if it ends at the border of Hunedoara and Gorj counties, in the middle of a forest, it will bring out of isolation one of the most spectacular mountain areas in Hunedoara.

The new road leads into the wilderness

Currently, the old forest road has been widened after excavating the slopes, some of the roadway support elements have been installed, and work is being done on the rainwater drainage network and protective walls.

Cars can currently travel on the future road, but during the works, until the end of September 2024, the access of cars is prohibited every day, between 7:00 and 17:30.

The investment carried out by the Hunedoara County Council amounts to 48 million lei, funds attracted through the “Anghel Saligny” National Investment Program, and aims to modernize over five kilometers of road, starting from the Valea de Peşti dam in Hunedoara, towards the Sohodolului Gorge from Gorj county.

“We hope to have this road completed within the next year,” says Costel Avram, the public administrator of Huendoara county.

The county road starts at 672 C (video) has a total length of 37 kilometers, of which 31 kilometers are in Gorj county, where most of the sector has been paved.

The road starts from Răchinţi village (Runcu commune, Gorj) and crosses the mountains towards Uricani, where it intersects with DN 66A.

In Gorj, the road is paved starting in the Runcu commune, and from its edge to the Sohodolului Gorge, and recently a sector of over five kilometers of the road entered the construction site, to be modernized.

From Cheile Sohodolului to Valea de Pești in Hunedoara, the route continues on a dirt and stone road, which climbs smoothly, crossing a dense deciduous and mossy forest. The forest road that crosses the Cheile Sohodolului reserve reaches an altitude of almost 1,000 meters, before descending into Hunedoara county, at the Valea de Pești dam.

With the modernization of the two sectors of the county road, from the Hunedoara and Gorj ends of it, almost 20 kilometers of forest road will remain in Gorj county, which tourists will have to travel if they want to explore the land.

Even if, having reached the end of the new tourist road on Valea de Pești, travelers will no longer continue their trip on the forest road to Cheile Sohodolului in Gorj county, the route offers tourist attractions in Hunedoara as well.

Lake Valea de Pești from Hunedoara

One of the landmarks of the area is the Valea de Pești lake in Hunedoara (video), whose dam, 50 meters high and about 240 meters long, was built five decades ago.

The construction of the Valea de Pești dam began in 1967, and the hydrotechnical development located about 10 kilometers from Uricani – the most isolated town in Hunedoara – was designed to ensure water supply to the cities and mines in the Jiului Valley.

For the construction of the dam, rock materials (stone and rocks) brought from a nearby mountain quarry were used. During the construction of the “colossus” in Retezat, more than nine million cubic meters of rock taken from the mountain, clay used for sealing and river boulders were used – ecological materials intended to replace the use of concrete as much as possible.

“The millions of tons of rock of the dam are precisely the Păroasa mountain, cut by the loads of 25,000 kilograms of explosive mixture triggered at every shot by the miners, with the help of compressors and drillers“, recounted the engineer Gheorghe Ciobanu, in July 1972.

The works on the construction of the dam and the accumulation of Valea de Pești, with an area of ​​about 25 hectares, were completed in 1973, and since then they have remained the largest hydrotechnical development in Valea Jiului, Hunedoara.

The village of Momârlani, devastated by the Ceaușescu regime, for coal

At the foot of the dam that stagnates the waters of the Valea de Pești stream, the village of Câmpul lui Neag from Hunedoara (video), an old village of the Momărlani (natives of Văia Jiului who raised animals).

The village located at the western end of the Jiului Valley, close to the sources of the western Jiului, was founded in the Middle Ages by mountaineers (inhabitants of the Oltenia region) who crossed the Carpathian Mountains into the lands of Hunedoara, finding themselves here, in the hidden place between the Retezat Mountains , Pleșa (Vâlcan mountains) and Godeanu the refuge from the Turks who invaded the lands south of the Carpathians.

Until the beginning of the 60s, the village, located ten kilometers from the town of Uricani, kept its patriarchal appearance, being bypassed by industrialization.

Travelers discovered here an archaic community of shepherds and mountain people, who lived almost undisturbed by the hustle and bustle in which the coal towns of the Jiu Valley were expanding.

For five years, between 1962 and 1967, the peace of the village of Câmpul lui Neag in Hunedoara was disturbed by the thousands of workers who worked on the construction of the Valea de Pesti dam. After the completion of the works, the village of Câmpul lui Neag would regain its peace again, for more than a decade.

From the summer of 1980, the fate of the settlement of Momârlani would change forever, with the discovery of coal deposits on the lands of the locals. The first tons of coal were removed from the edge of the village of Momărlani.

Then, with the expansion of exploitation, it got closer and closer to the archaic households of the locals.

In the autumn of 1987, the communist authorities announced to the people that they would have to permanently leave their old households in the center of the settlement, because below the village there is an important coal deposit that will be exploited in an open pit.

“In November – December 1987, it was snowing, raining, we found ourselves with the army in the village. They sent the soldiers to tell us to take the most valuable things in the house, tiles, materials, furniture and leave. Those who could not take their belongings had to leave them in the path of the bulldozers. In a few days there was no house left”recounted Emil Manolescu, whose old house was demolished in 1987.

The old church in the village of Câmpul lui Neag was also demolished, along with the cemetery around it.

Some locals wanted to stay in their homes until the last moment, even as the buckets of the excavators shook their walls. Others were lucky, being further from the perimeter of the future career.

Mining was closed in the 2000s, and today the site of the old mining pit at Câmpul lui Neag, surrounded by the mountains that preserved the households of the Momârlans, is occupied by a vast lake, more than 50 meters deep – which has become an attraction for fishing enthusiasts.

Fish Valley Ice Cave

The new road from Valea de Pești opens the way for hiking enthusiasts to Peștera de Gheăță (video), almost 200 meters deep, but difficult to access after going down about 20 meters from its mouth, towards the galleries.

Near the end of the future road and the border of Hunedoara and Gorj counties, a forest road descends to the right, towards Peștera de Gheăță, located about a kilometer away from Dj 672 C. The entrance is above the road, about ten meters, and travelers then descend another ten meters into the ground.

Speleologist Ioan Iusan, president of the Valea Jiului Hidrokarst Speleology Club, says that in the depths of the cave there are still ice formations left from ancient times, but access is difficult and is not recommended for the inexperienced. In the Jiului Valley, there are over 600 caves, and some of them can be explored, with the guidance of speleologists, he adds.

Speleologist Gigi-Paul Dragomir explored the Ice Cave and provided some details about it.

“The cave is developed in the crystalline limestones of the Tulișa series belonging to the Danubian Domain, limestones that are also found in the Vâlcan Mountains both in the Oslea mountain and in Cartianu. Due to the thermal inversion the cave is particularly cold, probably having 2-3 degrees Celsius inside. On a side gallery, from the entrance area, immediately after the povarniș, to the left as you go down, we found unique formations in Romania, consisting of calcite diaclases from the mass of crystalline limestones, which, being less soluble, remained in relief, giving the gallery a strange appearance , reminiscent of the fantastic galleries in Journey to the Center of the Earth (not the SF novel written by Jules Verne)”, stated the speleologist Gigi-Paul Dragomir, on his Facebook page.