site.btaMountaineering Event to Commemorate Beginnings of Organized Tourist Movement

Six hundred and ten people will join the fifth edition of a mountaineering team competition called "Retracing Aleko's Footsteps with a Friend" on October 1. The annual event commemorates writer Aleko Konstantinov, who founded the organized tourist movement in Bulgaria in 1895, when he led 300 people from the Sofia area up the slopes of Mt Vitosha.

Each entrant will walk one of two paths through Mt Vitosha, measuring, respectively, 27 km and 11 km in length. As usual, the climbers will be divided into four categories: Family, Friends, Co-workers and Neighbours. The Friends category is the most popular one. The company teams have increased, too, compared with earlier editions of the event.

"Again, we have a wide range of entrants, from young kids to experienced 80-year-old mountaineers," said Dimo Hristov, the main organizer of the competition. "There will be teams of people with motor, vision and hearing impairments. We are glad that they want to share in this adventure. They feel they are with friends, and they prove that if there is a desire and a team spirit, everything is possible."

Buses will take the participants from central Sofia to the starting/finishing points (Zheleznitsa and Vladaya) on the two paths and back, free of charge.

The competition "Retracing Aleko's Footsteps with a Friend" is organized by the Boeritsa Tourist Association in partnership with the Bulgarian Tourist Union, Sofia City Hall and the Vitosha Nature Park. It is included on the calendar of major sporting events in Sofia in support of the city's bid to become European Capital of Sport.