Get full access to The Daily Beast for $1 It’s one of the last wild mountain ranges in Europe, its isolation creating the feeling that this is a place removed from time. But that may all soon ...

When I send photos from my latest hiking adventure to a friend, his reply is immediate: ‘Are you in the Dolomites?’ It’s an easy mistake to make. The pictures show jagged peaks, sweeping valleys and ...

I was hardly surprised by my girlfriend, Rita’s, puzzlement when I tried to convince her we needed to visit Albania’s Accursed Alps, a wild mountain range along the country’s northern border. Most ...

Among the last places in Europe that is just beginning to get the tourists in numbers they deserve, after decades of communism and blood rivalries. Former Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha’s final heart ...

This February, TGR finally made good on nearly a decade of planning to explore Europe's wildest mountains: the Albanian Alps. These days, the hunt for untracked lines has taken TGR all across the ...

“Hey mate!” a cyclist called to us in an Australian accent as he pedaled by on the rocky dirt road that serves as the main street of the village of Theth deep in Albania’s Dinaric Alps. Along with my ...

Being dropped off by a helicopter 2,200m up a snow-covered mountainside is a rush of noise and chaotic motion. “I can’t be sure what’s underneath, so I’m not going to land,” our pilot, Detlef Gensel, ...

Violently sharp peaks, azure lakes and the odd bear make Montenegro’s wild Prokletije mountains one of the Balkans hikers’ best-kept secrets. The Albanian, or Montenegrin, Alps are unique within the ...

In Albania, a "sworn virgin" is a biological female who has chosen to take on the social identity of a man for life. It's a tradition dating back hundreds of years that still exists in the Albanian ...