Modrich - Raduch peak - Drenok on Jablanica mountain

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This hike of 23 km with 1500 m ascent starts at the village Modrich (Modric) at the northern part of the Jablanica mountain. It is a 45 km ride by car of approximately 1 hour from Ohrid.

The first 7.5 km to the Raduch peak are quite a climb of 1200 m, mainly through forest and some 4x4 roads. After 5.5 km, just before you leave the forest, there is a sheep farm and you always have to pay attention for the shepherd dogs. In this case the dog was tied up and I tried to have a bit of a chat with the shepherd using the few Macedonian words that I know.

There was another shepherd with his dogs, luckily for me on the other side of the mountain that I was climbing. The dogs can be quite aggressive. If you see sheep with dogs, the best thing is to avoid them at all or try to get the attention of the shepherd so he can call off his dogs before they get to you.

At first I thought there was another hiker at the Raduch peak, but it turned out to be a scarecrow of some sort! There are some very good views from the Raduch peak.

Make sure you enjoy the view, because you will be walking less than 1.5 km on the ridge before you start the descent again. The ridge is on the border with Albania and it is scarred with many military trenches.

After the waypoint marked “viewpoint” (with good views of lake Debar) the descent starts. Less than 0.5 km after the viewpoint it was quite unclear how to continue but just follow the GPS track into the vegetation. It soon will become clear that there indeed is another trail.

It sometimes was difficult to follow the right trail downhill, as there appeared to be several independent trails going down. The vegetation is dense sometimes for a short bit, but it was always possible to find the right trail again. Keep an eye on the GPS track though.

When you -finally- reach the asphalt road, there is sign indicating that this a border zone.

You have to follow the asphalt road for approximately 6 km back to Modrich. You’ll pass a few houses of the settlement Drenok. After 4.5 km on the asphalt road there is the possibility for a little detour to the Church of St Atanasij (Atanasios) the Great. The church was closed and there was not too much to see, although it’s a nice serene place.

Back in Modric I visited the church on the cemetery of Modrich, its name is unknown to me.

It was a rather tough hike, with only a short time on the top with good views. It was not really worth all the climbing, and the descent is not very pleasant either due to the often dense vegetation and the large part on asphalt in the end.

The trail was quite well marked until you leave the forest, after that it was a bit difficult but to the top it was clear again. Most of the downhill part was marked as well although it sometimes was difficult to follow the correct downhill trail.

This hike gets 3 out of 5 stars.