About the route
Korab (Maja e Korabit) is the highest summit of both Albania and North Macedonia, given as 2,764 m, on the border between them. The usual way up from the Albanian side starts in the village of Radomirë, reached from Peshkopi on a slow mountain road. This route follows mapped trails up the valley to the ridge south of the summit, then north along the ridge to the top.
One way it is 8.3 km with about 1,510 m of climbing; there and back the same way it is about 16.6 km and 1,540 m, which the DIN 33466 rule puts at about 10 h 15 min of walking. A published round trip from Radomirë gives 16 km and 1,481 m, close to ours. Our elevation model tops out at about 2,730 m because a 30 m grid rounds off a sharp summit; the line itself reaches the top.
About 170 m of the line, near the summit ridge, runs on the North Macedonian side of the border, so check the current border rules before you go. The ground is long and steep rather than technical, but it is high and exposed: snow can lie into June, the season in our data runs June to October, and storms build quickly over the ridge. Leave a trip plan so someone knows when you should be back.
How we got the numbers
Distance and climb come from the line itself: heights from the Copernicus GLO-30 elevation model (30 m), sampled every 30 m and smoothed with a running median of five samples, because in forest the model measures the top of the trees, and climbing counted once the height has changed by 3 m. These are the figures the app shows. Expect them to differ from a GPS track by 10 % or so.
Walking time follows the DIN 33466 rule used by the German and Austrian alpine clubs, without breaks. Difficulty comes from the whole outing (there and back): the climb and that time, one level up when 30 % or more of the line is on slopes over 30°.
9 % of the line itself runs on slopes over 30° in the elevation model; slopes above it are not counted. This describes the terrain, not today’s conditions, and it is not an avalanche rating.