Stage 4 · Vusanje → Gerbaja → Plav (Day 5)
39.9 km · +1,482 m · high point 1,875 m · 3 h 09 moving
Asphalt out of Vusanje through Gusinje and on to Gerbaja village. From there a gravel road built by the military climbs to a border post dating from the Cold War, the trail shifting from forest to open rock as you gain height. From the post it is singletrack, with Taljanka in view the whole way, up to Taljanka Pass and on to Can Peak. Return either back down the same trail or, for strong riders, along the hiking path. Finish in Plav.
Surface: asphalt to Gerbaja, then military gravel, then singletrack above the border post. (Exact split from the track file.)
Border: the day runs through the Montenegro–Albania border zone and past a disused border post — permit and passport with you.
Charging: Guesthouse Hana in Plav at the end of the day. Nothing on the climb.
Water & food: last shops in Gusinje. Nothing above Gerbaja.
The descent option: the hiking-path return is a highly technical line and genuinely dangerous — for very experienced riders only. If in any doubt, go back the way you came; it is a good descent in its own right and costs you nothing.
Note: the gentlest start of the whole trip, on tarmac, which makes it a good recovery-paced day between two hard ones. The climb to the border post is steady rather than steep; the effort is all in the singletrack above it.
Overnight: Guesthouse Hana, Plav — bike wash and e-bike charging point.
Table view
Sampled every 200 m. The full point-by-point data is in the GPX download.
Table view
Aspect by elevation band
Restricted to terrain of 25° or more — the ground where aspect actually matters. This is the format avalanche bulletins use, so you can carry it straight into your own assessment.
These figures come from a 30 m elevation model, resampled to a 25 m analysis grid. A model at that scale smooths steep ground: a genuine 45° couloir can read as 35°, and short steps between grid cells disappear entirely. Treat every angle here as a floor, not a ceiling, and verify on the ground.
Contours and hillshading from OpenTopoMap. Colour along the line follows the same slope classes as the profile.
Elevations sampled from Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (AWS Open Data) (30 m), analysis grid 25 m, EPSG:32634. This is a drawn line, not a recorded track: it carries no evidence about conditions on any particular day. A planning aid, not a recommendation.