Durmitor National Park is one of the great natural treasures of the world, encompassing 39,000 hectares including the entire tectonic-caused Durmitor Massif. The national park includes 48 mountain peaks each over 2,000 meters in height, topped by Bobotov Kuk at 2,523 meters in height.
Durmitor National Park is also home to 13 glacial cirques, 18 glacial lakes, three huge canyons (Tara, Susica, and Komarnica), some 750 springs, and an endless array of sink-holes, caves, and 200 kilomters of hiking trails. The Tara River Canyon is part of Durmitor National Park, an 80-kilometer long, 1,300-meter deep canyon.
The Durmitor National Park was first designated and created in 1952. The park was proclaimed as a world natural good in 1980 and was inscribed into the Register of the World's Natural Heritage of UNESCO.
One of the main tourist attractions of Durmitor is the glacier lake known as "Crno jezero", which means literally black lake. Crno Jezero is the biggest of the park's 18 glacial lakes.
Zabljak
The mountain town of Zabljak is the gateway, the "base camp" to activities in the Durmitor region, and in fact is the center of Montenegro's mountain tourism. Zabljak is situated 1456 meters above sea level, the highest town in the Balkans. Zabljak is surrounded by 23 mountain peaks over 2200 m high, with 18 mountain lakes, and with the canyon of Tara river, the deepest in Europe.
Mountain activities at Zabljak includes skiing (Alpine and Nordic) and snowboarding during the 120-day ski season (best slopes are Savin kuk, Stuoc and Javorovaca), rafting the Tara River, mountaineering and tracking Durmitor's cliffs and slopes, fishing, camping, and hiking.
The people from Zablak and surrounding region are of the Dinaric race. Dinaric peoples have been described as strong, tall, slender, intelligence in the face, strong cheekbones, eagle eyes, a people that have been called quite possibly the most beautiful in the Balkans. Generations of war, the difficult climate, have allowed only the strongest and fittest to survive.
It is interesting to note that the Gorska brand of bottled minteral water derives from the Durmitor region. The source of Gorska water is the south slopes of Durmitor, at the foot of the Bukovicka gora, in the middle of untouched nature, the Gornja Bukovica. The natural mineral water Gorska is categorized in the low-content mineral waters, hydrocarbonate-calcium type, with a stable temperature at the source, plus 50C.
The Zabljak area was the site of some battle activity during World War II, as evidenced by eight historic monuments.
