The Mountains of Montenegro - Walking, hiking and trekking

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Reviews
• Further Reading

Specialist map and travel shops in the UK such as Stanfords (www.stanfords.co.uk) stock general maps of Montenegro. Alternatively, Magic Map’s Crna Gora Autokarta, covering the country at a scale of 1:370,000, is widely available in Ser­bia and Montenegro and is reasonably priced. The Slovenian-produced Črnogorsko primorje (Geodetski Zavod Slovenije) gives more detailed coverage of the Montenegrin coast at a scale of 1:100,000, but is not suitable for hiking. If you are travelling via a neighbouring country, a more general regional map may be useful. In any case, one such general map will be useful for planning, but will be of no use whatsoever for route-finding in the mountains.

Detailed walking maps of Durmitor, the Tara Canyon, Komovi and Bjelasica (at scales of between 1:25,000 and 1:60,000) are available in Montenegro from National Park Offices and Tourist Information Offices in the relevant area for about €7. You may be able to find one of the recommended maps of Durmitor (1:50,000) second hand on the internet (try www.abe.com) in the book Durmitor and Tara Canyon Guide by Branislav Cerović (Belgrade, 1986) – check with the seller that it still has the map attached, though.

The whole of Montenegro is also covered by various series of detailed military maps (generally not available for sale, or prohibitively expensive), including those produced by the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army – 1:25,000, produced 1975; 1:50,000, produced 1981; and 1:100,000), by the former Soviet Union (1:50,000, produced 1974–77; and 1:100,000, produced 1975–87), and in the US NIMA Series M709 (1:50,000, produced 1992–95). The JNA series are by far the best – US NIMA M709 sheets have very few local place names. Note that the text of the Soviet sheets is in Cyrillic.