Lacul Bucura

How it formed

Bucura is a cirque lake: it fills a bowl cut into the mountain by a glacier. It lies south of the main ridge of the Retezat range, at the base of Peleaga Peak.

History

The Retezat lakes have long drawn hikers. In the 19th century the mountains were a hunting ground for princes and nobles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and early in the 20th century the geologist Lajos Lóczy and his students made the first surveys of the lakes, mapping the depths of Bucura and Zănoaga.

In the 1930s the scientists Alexandru Borza and Emil Racoviță campaigned for nature reserves, and in 1935 the government set aside about 100 km² of the range as Romania’s first national park. Local legend has an older story: giants dug these stone basins with their arms, and drank from them after their battles.

Nature

The lake lies inside Retezat National Park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 1979. Even in summer the water is cold, about 14 °C at the surface and 10 °C at the bottom.

The high ground around it is the place to look for chamois and marmots. The marmots were brought to the park’s Gemenele reserve in 1973 and have since spread. The park as a whole has about 1,190 plant species and 55 mammals, among them brown bears, wolves and lynx, as well as nearly 200 bird species.