An enveloping fog slowly gripped to the jet black precipices above me while I kick a step into the seemingly supportable, but not entirely firm receding snowpack. Instilling within me sufficient trust to continue, I then debate using the cold steel chains bolted into the mountain wall as climbing aides or simply scrambling along the near vertical granite edifice using natural handholds. In either case, though, I resist the temptation to look down, this is universally understood. I logically choose to alternate between both as I scale the final 100 meters up towards the Szpiglasowa pass, which viewed from the Dolina Pięciu Stawów mountain hut the day before seemed insurmountable despite the occasional sight of ant-like hikers descending from its heights.
At the pass, I await Joanna, Ted, and the rest of the small group that invited me for an attempt at the Szpiglasowy summit just another 15 minutes further along the jagged ridgeline. A moment later, I observe a silhouette victoriously saluting from the summit as the milky fog was now violently being eviscerated upon confrontation with the updrafts from the next valley over.
Damn, this is simply epic.
….
I spent more time in Berlin than I had originally intended, but it was time well spent with good people. After indulging in the delights of the urban playground that is Berlin, it was now time that I satisfy my soul in the realm of the Gods that we colloquially refer to as mountains. The Incas ascribed spiritual powers to the highest points of topography and there is no doubt a similar belief in my core, as I have sought them out throughout my life. Perhaps in part because I did not grow up near any. Needless to say, they have always spoken to me in tones strong enough to alter life courses. Their wisdom has never disappointed or proven illusory.
The Tatras of southern Poland and Slovakia mark the beginning of the Carpathian mountain range and are lesser known in comparison to the rightly glorified Alps of France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, or even the Pyrenees of Spain and France (which will have to feature in a future trip of mine). That said, upon arrival one is struck by how intimidating they present themselves and it’s no surprise they serve as a border between two nations. Even some non-technical mountain passes appear impossibly steep, yet in fact, a trail can be found switch-backing up towards the notch between serrated peaks.
I admittedly planned very little in advance of my arrival to Zakopane, the rather glitzy resort town in Poland serving as the gateway into the Tatras. In part, I thought I may spend a day or two in Krakow prior to hitting any trails, but the weather forecast looked rather bleak, and having taken a walkabout old town and grabbing some lunch, I felt momentarily satisfied on the diet of old architecture, castle walls, and church steeples, and determined the best course was to boogey to Zakopane and attempt to get an initial hike in before the weather turned stormy late the following afternoon. I used my time on the train from Krakow to begin researching my options.
Tatras National Park does not allow for wild camping anywhere within the park, so one must either resign themselves to day hikes or secure a space in one of only a handful of mountain huts. I read that the Dolina Pięciu Stawów (The Valley of Five Lakes) hut was deemed the best one in the system as its not entirely besieged by day tourists and provides the greatest access to a variety of hikes from there, so I began navigating its Polish-only website to book a place which appeared available. While I was apparently successful in booking a reservation, the payment was only acceptable via Polish bank transfer. Uhhh…
Slightly demurred, I refocused on securing a place in Zakopane for the night, and when I arrived to the incredibly charming and quaint Willa Blanca that I booked there, the immensely warm character that greeted me joked that the bathroom was the stream in the backyard, the archaic typewriter was the office, and blocky TV set playing a tape of 1950s Polish ski films was the theater. The place was everything you would expect from a dated ski chalet. What a score.
Eventually though, language barriers presented themselves and he connected me with his daughter after I began asking him if I could leave a bag and my guitar for a couple of nights while I went to the national park. While discussing that with her, she asked if I had a reservation and I explained the situation. She readily offered to pay online for me if I gave the cash to her father. How trusting and accommodating!
I picked up snacks and a paper map the next morning and caught an early bus to a popular trailhead, a very popular trailhead….Hoards of people and student groups were walking a closed road up to Morski Oko, an alpine lake with a day lodge, but I detoured through a queit trail system in the forest and later up a waterfall rich path up to the Valley of Five Lakes. As I ascended above tree line the mountains became spectacular and began reminding me of home in Colorado. I was immediately satisfied with my decision to pass on Krakow and beeline into the mountains.
While I got to the hut situated on the blissful shores of Prezdni Staw in good weather, and had time to set off to gain a ridge further back in the valley to appreciate the full grandeur of the alpine valley, the skies progressively darkened and the tempest of the coming days began to announce herself.
Forecasts called for nearly 2″ of rain in the next 36 hours. Yet, poor weather makes a mountain hut all the more welcoming and cozy. In such circumstances, one resorts to nothing more than sipping a warm beverage, amusing in the natural spectacle of interplay between raw landscape and variable atmosphere, and engaging in conversation with the random selection of hut mates at the table next to you.
The weather certainly tempered ambitions. But while I did not complete a thru-hike of the national park linking all the huts together or attempt the famous Świnica ridge line traverse, I thoroughly marveled in the fresh air and sights from day hikes I squeezed in between torrents of precipitation. I also met some wonderful people.
Specifically, Ulyana, an aspiring Belarusian photographer living in Gdansk with whom I shared a bunk room, and a friendly group of Poles and a couple of their foreign boyfriends, including a Dane and a long time American expat. There is a saying about Quality over Quantity, and I think that applies often to the people you meet in far out settings where fewer folks are about but the setting and circumstance warrants an accelerated familiarity and enthusiastic social exchange versus the sea of anonymity we can encounter in cities. A couple of nights of beverages and board games (from which I have now devised an appropriate strategy for excelling at Super Farmer) provided the cherry on top of my mountain escapade into the Polish Tatras.
The last day still presented unstable weather and all the staff cautioned me against taking the direct route I mapped out back to Zakopane going over Krzyżne pass. As a substantially experienced mountain wanderer*, I always have to balance the advice of well-intentioned others who regularly consult inept tourists with my own intuition and capability, but as I get older, I also attempt to moderate the risks of solo adventuring in adverse conditions. Ultimately, I allowed for the warm invite from my new acquaintances to join on the loop hike up to Szpiglasowy peak and down to Morskie Oko to tip the scale on my course of adventure for the day, which proved inspirational.
Also clutch, was that during the hike, Ted, the American expat, lent me an insightful tip for the next destination I would gravitate towards in the coming days on the Slovak side of the Tatras…
*twice on this segment of the trip, it was suggested that I remind people of Snufkin – I accept this caricature.
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