R2R
Europe redefines Old. Every city we have been in has an Old Town, maybe an Old Castle, and certainly Old Ruins. When I say Old… I mean 12th -13th century Old. This place makes Calgary’s historical buildings look like diaper clad children! We have climbed Old town hall’s, and marveled at the architecture of Old Church’s. This area (The Baltics and Poland) has a fascinating recent history as the impact of WWII can be seen and felt everywhere. There are lots of museums that describe life before and after the Soviet and Nazi Occupations. The Old Town’s are great places to people watch as there are many restaurants and pubs to sit in on central squares. BUT…after 3 weeks of Old and museums, Matt and I needed a break so we headed to the mountains!
Poland is not exactly the first place you think of when looking for mountains, but they were the closest to where we were and the weather promised to be warm and dry. What an amazing choice we made, and certainly a place not to be missed.
The Tatras are in the Carpathian Mountain range and the area is the natural border between Poland and Slovakia. We took many trains to Zakopane – THE holiday destination for Polish people winter and summer. It closely resembles Banff, and we arrived on the last day of their mountain film festival. There were literally thousands of visitors in the town as every house has a Pokje (room) available for rent.
As Canadians we misjudged what a busy place can really be like. I mean, sure the town was busy with people, but how many are really likely to actually put out some physical effort and go for a hike? We thought we would take advantage of the gondola to get to the top of the mountain and hike from there. We arrived to the que by about 10:00am expecting about a 20 minute wait at the most. Turns out EVERYONE in Zakopane goes hiking….the wait to get on the gondola would have been 3 hours from where we were standing!!!!
Fortunately there were many clearly marked trails to choose from so we started from the bottom. There are mountain “huts” littered throughout the region where people can stay for the night and during the day beer and snacks are always available for sale. When we got to the first “hut” I realized that there may be many definitions for this word. Think the main lodge at Louise and you will have a fairly accurate vision of what we found. We hiked to the top of a pass and were rewarded with beautiful views and an entire grade 9 class enjoying their lunch at the same spot. After a brief rest and a snack we continued up to bag the peak that everyone said we must do.
This experience re-defined busy wilderness. We waited in a que for about 20 minutes to ascend the steep sections that have chains anchored into the rock. We looked like ants snaking our way to some utopia in the sky. The top was beautiful and did afford us some incredible views of the town and the mountain range. When it was time for us to go down, I started down what I thought was the path, and quickly realized that it wasn’t a path, and I had better hurry up and get in line if I wanted to get off the mountain on the same day! This wait was closer to 40 minutes before we even STARTED to descend down the chain area. Unreal. Both Matt and I were quite inspired by the variety of people we saw hiking here: young, old, some with full on hiking boots, others with Toms type of shoes and many women with their purses. Every place was a good place for a smoke, and to answer your cell phone.
The next day we awoke at the crack of dawn to arrive at the Gondola in time to actually get up the cable car in the morning. At the restaurant at the top we enjoyed a cup of coffee with a lovely 66 year old Polish man with limited English who was enjoying his breakfast beer. Using our useful tourist map (with no topography or difficulty level outlined) we chose a route and set out. It was stunning to walk along the ridge and starting your day at 1193 meters is much easier than having to hike up from the bottom.
The path we followed included bagging another peak at 2093 meters. Again, our Canadian perspective on scrambling up rocks did not serve us well. It would seem there is no elevation gain or loss too steep to attach a chain and encourage hundreds of people to use without ropes. As we sat staring at each other (and the view) we were both quite impressed with the engineering involved. Coming down the other side of the mountain proved to be somewhat more challenging. In some locations the terrain was so steep ladder rungs were drilled into the rock to aid in the ascent and descent. Fortunately there weren’t as many people on this hike so the only wait was really for the person in front of you to be “off the chain” before you started down. The hardest part for me was the brain game…. at the end of one section I said to Matt: “serious brain F@#$!
The path led us to some high mountain lakes and alpine meadows. We could see different trails snaking up other mountains that most Canadian mountain goats would think twice before taking. We found ourselves at a different “hut” and enjoyed a cold coke and resupplied our water. Matt hiked up another mountain and down the other side to their Lake Louise (Morskie Orso) while I took the longer less steep route to the bus stop. Miraculously we met up at the bus and took the same one back to town for a well earned beer or two (maybe 3 or 4)
If we didn’t have a date in Kiev I am sure we could have spent the remainder of our trip in this beautiful location. The numbers of people enjoying the wilderness was quite inspiring, and definitely something we could learn from as Canadians! We will continue to enjoy the OLD history and learn in museums, but our route planning south to Turkey will take us closer to more mountain ranges and other “wilderness” experiences.
