Visit Albania .guide

Decision

The Valbonë to Theth crossing, or the whole Peaks of the Balkans?

They are not two walks. The crossing is a stage of the loop, and it is the stage almost everybody means when they say they walked in the Albanian Alps. The question is really whether you are here for a day or for a fortnight in three countries.

Side by side

The Valbonë to Theth crossing, or the whole Peaks of the Balkans?
 The Valbonë to Theth crossingThe full Peaks of the Balkans loop
Distance15 to 17 km village to village, or 9.5 km from the Rrogam trailhead, over a pass at 1,795 m.Signposted at 192 km by the trail's own organisation; the OpenStreetMap relation for it is tagged 179 km.
How long it takesFive to eight hours, which is one day and one guesthouse at each end.Not a day. It is a multi-day loop, and this site publishes no stage list and no daily distances for it.
BordersNone. Both ends are in Albania.Three countries: Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro. Permits exist for the crossings, and this site carries neither their cost nor the process, so it does not describe them.
SeasonAbout four months. The pass clears around mid-June and the first snow ends it in October, inside a window the ferry and the Theth road frame at 15 April to 5 November.The same alpine snow governs it, and there is no twelve-month grid here for the loop as a whole.
What you seeBoth valleys and the pass between them: the braided gravel riverbed under Valbonë on one side, the stone village below the Radohima wall on the other.Three countries' sides of the same range, of which the crossing below is one part.

Our answer

Walk the crossing. It is the stage of the loop that people picture when they picture this walk, and the clearest evidence of that is cartographic: there is no OpenStreetMap route for the Valbonë to Theth pass at all, because it exists inside the loop's relation rather than beside it. One day gets you the pass, both valleys and a bed at either end. The full loop is a serious fortnight through Kosovo and Montenegro that needs border permits this site cannot yet describe, so if you want it, plan it with an operator rather than from this page.

IfYou have three or four nights in the AlpsThe crossing. Ferry in, a night in Valbonë, the pass, a night in Theth, out by road.
IfYou want the whole range and have two weeksThe loop, planned with someone who handles the border permits, because this site does not carry them.
IfYou are travelling before mid-June or after early OctoberNeither. The pass is under snow at one end of that window and the ferry has stopped at the other.
IfYou want the Alps without a mountain passNeither. Theth's own day walks start in the village: the Blue Eye up the valley, and the Grunas waterfall below it.

Sources: Hungarian Dreamers, Valbona Pass, measured track (read 2026-08-25); Peaks of the Balkans, the trail organisation's own site (read 2026-08-23); OpenStreetMap relation 4726204, Peaks of the Balkans (read 2026-08-25); Albania Voyagers, Shkodër to Theth (2026) (read 2026-08-25); Koman Lake Ferry (Berisha), operator timetable and prices (read 2026-08-25).