Ninety seconds on Bobotov Kuk
Parties turn back at the cabled section near the top, and that is the decision the day turns on. There is no spring on the route and nothing sells water up there, so the whole day's supply goes in the pack.
Durmitor's 2,523-metre summit, climbed most directly from the Sedlo pass in five to eight hours return. The final half hour is a narrow ledge on fixed cable, and snow holds on the upper route into early July. Start early; cloud builds on the massif through the afternoon.
Six to eight hours return is the realistic allowance from Sedlo, and the five hours quoted locally is a moving time rather than a day out. Most of the distance is ordinary walking over meadow and boulder field, and the difficulty sits in three short places where cable is bolted into rock: a step early on at Uvita Greda, a narrow crevice, and the final stretch to the summit, which is exposed and in places barely a boot wide. Hikers do turn round there. The steep drop off the ridge on the way back is the part most often underestimated, on loose ground that is polished in places. Nothing on the route sells anything and no spring or tap was found along it, so two litres a person is the floor.
At 2,523 metres this is the top of the Durmitor range. It was long taken for the highest point in Montenegro, and later surveys placed three peaks above it on the border with Albania, which is why the mountain is still described both ways.
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