Polish mountains – whichever ones you choose – are beautiful. And that is a fact. But other than that they are so differential [is that the right word?]. They can be easy, and hard to get through, can be friendly or deadly… And Bieszczady, they are not the nicest ones.
I have not been hiking for some years now. When I was young my mother dragged me for a hike few times a month from early spring till late fall. Dragged. I didn’t want to go. I wanted my weekends. But somehow it grew on me I guess. And one day mountains came calling. Something in me wanted to be back there, even though I still say I don’t like it. And sure as hell I don’t understand it. So I’ve decided to “collect” The Crown of Polish Mountains…
The crown of Polish Mountains is twenty-eight peaks. These are the highest peaks of each of the mountain ranges of Poland – in principle. In practice, these are the highest peaks to which a marked tourist trail led at the time the list was compiled. The list was approved on December 13, 1997.
The Club of the Conquerors of Crown of Polish Mountains has been created. After you access it you get a little book to collect photos and stamps from each mountain on the list, once you collect all of them you get a badge. Just a badge and hopefully – some satisfaction about job well done.
So here we go – my first one… TARNICA.
HERE WE GO – the beginning of a trail
We drive our car to Wołosate. It seems like an end of the world. We leave our car at the parking lot. A few minutes up the road from Wołosate there is a rangers booth and toilets. I will appreciate their presence more after descending. We buy entrance tickets to the Bieszczady National Park. A regular ticket costs eight zlotys. We get a stamp in our books and off we go. We could have chosen the short trail, but I wanted views. I wanted to make it a day long trip – I guess I got what I wanted.
At the beginning of a trail you will find and old church site. There’s not much left – piece of wall, some graves… Left by coulture already almost forgotten, extinct.
Trails in Polish mountains are color coded. We are starting with red trail. First trail leads along an asphalt road. Easy, basically flat. Then, after about 1,5 kilometer it turns left. Still pretty flat, nice. Seems the trails want us to ease in.
We cought first glimpse of Tarnica. And I’m thinking nah, it can’t be it. It’s to steap, to high, how will we climb it?
We walk through a forest. Nice, easy, not to hot. We made our first snack stop. There are some people on the trail with us, but not many.
Somewhere after our fourth kilometer trails goes up. But still we make it to Bukowska Pass [Przełęcz Bukowska] in pretty good shape. Here we find a viewpoint. And it’s amazing.
And than it goes south…
From the Bukowska Pass trail goes straight up and it hurts. I am not in shape. If there is something oposite to shape – I’m it. I’m not in shape, I’m in bloob :) I was taking a breather every few meters and still my heart was punding around 160 a minute and I was out of breath and finally my chest started to hurt. And I thought, yeap, that’s it. This is where I die. But at least I’ll have a view.
I sat down and just waited. For the pain to go away, for my heart to calm down. Got something to eat, something to drink and watched amazed. I forgot how beautiful it is.
I have manged my resources more wisely after that balancing on the edge of collapsing with a grace of an elephant. We’ve reached our first peak and seen the second one.
I told myself there’s no way I can get there – it’s too much, and than step by step did it. At that peak we have run out of water. I took barely enough for one, my boyfriend forgot his. From now on we were basicaly drinkless and that wasn’t even half of our trail. Sun was giving quite a performance that day and there was nowhere else to go but forward. There was no shortcut to take. We had to go all the way.
Safe to say Rysiu, my boyfriend will never go hiking without lots and lots of water.
Long way forward…
From that peak I thought I will never climb – Halicz – we went down a bit. After that trail went along the side of a mountain and I could catch a breath. If we only had water and some shade it would be even pleasant. But we had neither. Still it was a bit of a brake.
13.5 kilometers of our trail behind we have reached another pass. I believe that’s where we both reached are breaking point. We were done. But people are these amazing creatures that go beyond that point on pure willpower. And we did too. We really had no choice. All around us there were people – mostly in all shades of exhaustion. The more the merrier right?
Trail was going straight up. We had to get to this saddle you see at a photo below. It you look closely you’ll see the trail. From that saddle called Przełęcz pod Tarnicą, there’s only 15 more minutes to the top of Tarnica. So, we figured, we might just do it. And we did scoring our first peak from The Crown of Polish Mountains.
We had to make a photo to document the achievement and than took some more photos to look at when we will be back home and more alive. We didn’t spend much time up there. We wanted to go down and get something, anything to drink. We would be happy with anything – puddle would be enough.
And down we went
So we went down. Huge stone steps were first on the way. Not very nice to walk on, but bringing us closer to finish line – everything had a silver lining at that point. With us was walked a man we met at the last part up. He was looking for a ride from Wołosate and I agreed to take him to his car. He was in better shape than we were so he pulled us a bit. Mentaly of course.
Way down was long, long, longer… At the top of everything signes were lying to us. Last five minutes of a trail went for like twenty. And it wasn’t our minds playing tricks…
Finally after twenty kilometers and thousands of steps we saw rangers booth again. And this tiny toilett building. There was a sign do not drink over the sink. So I took my shirt of and just poured icy water all over me. Than I have I wet my shirt and put it on without even wringing it out. It was heaven. Rysiu risked his life… well health and drunk the water. He lived :)
There was less than kilometer to our car and half that I was already dry. But no matter – we have reached parking lot and a store. After a bottle of Oshee isotonic I felt a lot better. We sat. I had a half of alcohol free beer and we were ready to go. Guys could have a proper beer as they were not driving and they used that possibility with joy. I have never seen Rysiu enjoying beer since and till that moment.
We got our friend to his car and decided to refuel. I have heard about this place with giant pancakes so we went. Had to stand in line to get in – that’s how famous they are but the legend was true. It was giant. Actually restaurant was issuing diplomas to anyone who could eat the whole thing. I got the smaller version and still took half of it home. It looks so small on that photo but had like 20cm.
And that’s how the day we almost died went. We drove to our cabin. Bought some beers and didn’t move a muscle for the whole evening.
By Jagna Blog 