Zakopane to Poprad

Well the bears didn't get us. In fact they heard me coming for miles and were nowhere to be seen, but perhaps it was not just me being characteristically chatty- it could have been the thousands of polish tourists who take the cable car to the polish -slovakian border everyday! Yes the Tatra National Park on the polish side was absolutely heaving with visitors. However we had a great tactic (not really intended mostly because of having a leisurely large breakfast) of starting quite late and therefore being on the mountains when most of the tourist were leaving.
The weather was beautiful and it was a real balm to Robin and I to be high up again and away from the bikes for the first time. Zakopane had been a bit hectic, very touristy and tacky with taxes on just about everything, finally were we relaxing with the challenge of 2000 metre plus mountains to soothe our souls.

We planned to spend 3 nights in the polish side of the National park and thought we would invesitgate the effectiveness of National park byelaw enforcement - camping is not allowed! Our first night was beautiful we were too late to make it to a mountain hut and camped with our heads in Slovakia and feet in Poland. We were up at 5.30 am to get the tent down quickly, but that was the end of our early start as the ridge was too beautiful to hurry on and we liesurely melted snow for coffee and porridge.

We enjoyed a great day weaving around the crowds who had come off the cable car and made it up to Swinica, a 2300m peak. The Park is full of "tourist routes" which are graded paths and so whenever a bit of scrambling is encountered chains have been put in to make it easier. I am not sure that these chains are a good idea. They encourage the less able to get to places they really shouldn't be and they must be a maintenance nightmare. But also they mean everyone gets bottled-necked around the chains, as they can make an easy section of scrambling seem harder!
We left the top of Swinica after lunch and I got stuck behind some people on the chains, once off the scrambling part I was hurrying along the easy bit to catch up with Robin when I sprained my ankle!
I swore alot, we were above 2000m and it hurt, This is the disadvantage of cycle touring because we did not have boots with us. Although I have managed to sprain my ankle before even in boots, I had just been saying how my approach shoes are good, but it shows you must always be carefull especially on the easy bits!
I had an ankle support with me so put it on straight away and kept scrambling down. We got down to some beautiful snow melt lakes and I soaked my ankle, unfortunately it came out more swollen than when it went in so we went ot the nearest mountain hut. The hut warden took pity on us and gave us a discount on the bed for the night.

It turned out really well though, we met lots of polish peolpe in the hut who bought us warm cherry vodka and helped us translate our package food we had bought becuase it was light wieght.

My ankle is much better now. We woke up in the hut and decided on an easier walk than the one we had planned beacause of my ankle, however the weather changed and it rained and rained. We pushed on to Morskie Oko - the Polish Tartra's most visisted spot were we encountered thousands of tourists all wearing plastic smurf suits! Somewhere further down the plastic poncho sales man was making a killing. We walked back out to Zakopane that day, taking the long route through the woods and seeing crossbills and a three toed woodpecker! Which was very cool, It was really easy to see and was not bothered by us at all, maybe everything happens for a good reason, beacuse without the ankle injury we would not have been on that path.

The next day we cycled to Slovakia, happy to leave Zakopane and my ankle coping well with a slow pace on the quiet road to the border. The rain held off untill the border where it opened up and we happly overtook the queue just wearing jackets and shorts, as it was not cold if you kept cycling. We had food enough to camp anywhere inside Slovakia but made it round to Tatranska Lominca and Sportcamp, where they did not mind that we had no Slovakian money. They took my passport and said pay tommorrow it's ok. So we joined everyone else sheltering in the kitchen block and rested up for the night. The next day we cycled to Stary Smokovec to find out about mountain routes, info on the huts and to get some mountin supplies. We went into the Mountain resuce office who were really helpfull and who assured us all the paths were open and told us where the expensive busy hotels/huts were.

The next day we packed up our stuff and stored it at the sport camp, we were trying to leave at about 11 am (again not a very early start) when we were waylaid by a group of friendly slovakians who assured us that plum schnapps would be helpful for carrying our backpacks! We found out from our friends the reason why there was what seemd to be a mass clear fell operation going on on the Slovakian side, in November two huge winds had met . The southerly wind had met a strong wind coming down from Poland and the whole southern side of the Tatra forest had been flattened. This made a lot more sense of things as we had been wondering about the hugely devasted forests, that foresters were trying to tidy up. This made the Lake District storms of January look tiny! We could not refuse the schnapps though and at noon we staggered up the road with definitely lighter feeling packs.

There is a great electric train along the bottom of the mountains and for 1GBP we got tickets along to the far end about 20 KM away to start our walk. Again we relished our late start tactic as hoards of people were leaving the hills as we were just going up. The Slovakian side of the High Tatras is less busy though and the mountains are more rocky and impressive. There are many more climbing routes and the place feels much more alpine.

We were intent to climb Rysy, the highest mountain in Poland ( as my ankle had prevented this from the Polish side) and we thought we would stay in the Chata Pod Rysy which is just below the summit col. We arrived at 6pm to be told that they were full. This came as a surprise as we had been assured that no-one is turned away from a mountain hut. Anyway the day was still beautiful so se left some stuff at the hut and ran up to the top of the mountain. It was fantastic, we thought we would check once again at 7.50 pm that there really was not room for us in the hut and we were very grumpily told to go back down the 2 hours to the expensive hotel. This upset us a bit but we thought fair play they are really turning everyone away. Five minutes down the path we met 3 Slovakians who were very heavily laden obviously going to the hut, we told them it was full they seemd incredulous and said -what even the floor in the eating room! They went on as it was 8 pm and they looked exhausted and we did not see them return down the track that night, so the hut defintiley had room for Slovakians but obviously not foreigners!
It did not matter because we had spotted some climber's bivvy shelters under some boulders on the way up and not caring now about the rules of the park we happily slept under a boulder in a realy fantastic private spot, with an amazing starry night sky. It was muich nicer to wake up in our own little cave than up in the hut wiht lots of smelly people.

We stuck to tourist routes and walked round the southern path to get to the next valley. The park is well regulated and some areas are closed to people completely because it is a biospehere reserve. Our route took us up a quieter valley to a really empty part of the Park on a way that was built in 1908 over a boulder field. The paths here are great and the mountains are just awesome, we kept thinking about all you lot back in Kendal and how much you would all love it here. Robin and I both think it is defintley worth a visit and next time we would love to come back as proper climbers with some climbing guidebooks and vist the west Tatra too. We have not seen the bears, but have had lots of close views of deer and marmots.

We camped that night high up with an amazing view into Poland. We woke to blue skies again. It is fantastic to eat porridge just below 2000m in a quite mountain place with the prospect of empty paths and lots of scrambling ahead of you that day. These high paths have only been open for 2 weeks and there is still quite a bit of snow in places. We planned to do a classic circular route and booked into Zbronika hut leaving most of our stuff there. The scramble was great and I even thought the chains in this particular route were probably neccessary. Not really sure whether this can count as a grade 3 scramble or not, beacuse of the chains, but without them it is defintiley a climb. I loved it, which is really good as Robin remembers 2 years ago when I was terrified of doing anything exposed. My ankle was fine and I think that some cycling now will be good for it. That night just as we arrived back to the hut the rain started and we were glad to be inside by a fire place. The Tatra huts do serve food but they also do not mind if you cook, so we enjoyed beer with our own cooked meal, very nice!

We trudged out through the rain, back to Sport camp to collect our stuff and make towards Poprad to buy a map, beacuse we did not know where to go next. We had met a fellow Scot, called Ken, in Krakow who is cycling to Ukraine, he told us that there is a visa window to September for EU nationals to visit the Ukraine. We did not know whether to take this opportunity or to stick to going towards Budapest. Anyway on the way to Poprad the rain was solid, but cycling was going well and it was fun again after about a week off the bikes, when ahead I saw Robin's bike slide out from him as he sprawled across the road. I braked and realised it was the level crossing that had made him slip. I thought I was going slow enough and I lined up my wheels accross the tracks, but I was looking to see if he was ok and AHHH!! I did exactly the same as him.

We picked ourselves up and got out of the road. Robin had been travelling at about 23 mph and he was lucky to have rolled when he fell and that there was no other traffic on the road. However he has no skin on his knuckles on his left hand and left elbow, his waterproof trousers are ripped and disaster! the left pannier bag has ripped. I faired much better - only some bruises. We recovered in a bus stop with some chocolate and patched the pannier bag with gaffer tape and slowly cycled on to Poprad. We arrived just as everything was shutting, but found a lovely cheap one star pension for 700 SK (11.70GBP). There was a bath and Robin soaked his brusies and dried out our stuff as I dared to navigate round the Tesco Hypermarket. It was great to have a private room and bathroom to cook in and we have patched the equipment. We lay in this morning and so are still in Poprad. We have spent some time in the book shop looking at maps and have decided to go to the Ukraine next.

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