Marking: Red strip
Length: 12 km
Route: Cerna – Valea lui Puiu (Puiu’s Valley) – Echiştea Peak – Crapcea Peak – Crapcea Hill – Balabancea
Stop: Under Crapcea Peak
Route difficulty: Medium
We meet this route on the southern side of the park, offering an impressive landscape with steppe meadows and rock formations, ensuring wide panoramas over the Taița Depression, the Niculițel Hill, the Horia reservoir and the southern peaks of the Măcin Mountains.
As for the habitats, on the route we encounter moesic-west Pontic hornbeam, gorun and linden forests with silvosteppe habitats – rarities of downy oak, mojdrean, silver hair and hornbeam, steppe meadows and saxicolous associations on pike.
On this route we meet the following plant species: Dobrogean bluebell, Garofita dwarf, Dediței; endemic butterflies, Polia cherrug, Chersotis laeta macini and Chersotis fibriola niculescui; reptiles: Dobrogean tortoise, Dobrogean lizard, Leaf lizard, Steppe lizard; birds: the great mouse, the stoner, the stone blackbird, the orchard plover; mammals: Carpathian deer, stone marten, tree marten, golden jackal.
