The Seven Ladders

The Seven Ladders Canyon is a stunning destination near Braşov and it is one of the main attractions for the tourists hiking the rocky paths of the Piatra Mare (Big Rock) mountain. Its waterfall - the Seven Ladders Waterfall - is the second in Europe as length.


If magic is not what makes you tick, maybe knowing that the Seven Ladders (sometimes translated as Seven Stairs - an ad-literam of the Romanian Şapte Scări) waterfall is the second in Europe as length with a level difference of cca. 120 m. The name Seven Ladders comes from the seven consecutive waterfalls that form this amazing structure.


The Seven Ladders are located in the middle-western part of the Piatra Mare Mountains, at an average altitude of 980 m, not far away from Valea Timişului (Dambu Morii), on the Seven Ladders River, the left-side affluent of Şipoaia Creek. These are the greatest and the most spectacular gorges of the whole Piatra Mare Mountains. The first ladder of the gorges, going upwards, has a height of 8 m, followed by another 6 ladders; the longest one has a height of about 12 m. The Seven Ladders gorges are carved in Jurassic calcites, which register the traces of the recent evolution of the entire mountain. The accelerated epigenesis had lead to the creation of the river, first in cretaceous aggregation layer and then in Jurassic calcites layer. This had conducted in the hill breaks (the seven cascades) that follow on the river bed (2.5-15 m heights) and have marmite as base.