Slovakia

Hiking in the High Tatras

26th-28th August 2022

The summer after I graduated with my MEarthSci, I headed to Eastern Europe to hike the Gorce Mountains in Poland, followed by a fairly serious expedition into the High Tatras of Slovakia. I spent the months prior preparing – it would be a challenging mission to climb Slavkovsky Štit, 2,452 metres.

I crossed the border into the NE of the country with two friends, Romanian sisters Tereza and Maria. We hiked, and hitch-hiked, our way through continental heat to Tatranská Lomnica at the grand, granite entrance to the Tatras. From there, we traipsed up, and in.

At dusk, we arrived at our last-minute hut to sleep on the floor of the attic ahead of an early start to our climb the next day. We ate parboiled pasta and instant soup in evening cabin light and prepared our route up the ridge.

Stark sun, altitude, and the unwelcome arrival of my period (adds to the self-inflicted suffering) made Slavkovsky more of a challenge than I’d thought, though the terrain was less exposed than my research had suggested. It was rugged, but not quite scrambly. However, exposure was certainly not lacking.

After 1000 metres of strenuous hiking, and almost as many metres of Polish pepperami eaten, Tereza, Maria and I finally made our victory summit on the top of the 4^th highest peak in the Tatras. Slavkovsky Štit, conquered.

A gradual but efficient descent took us down to the land of normal living – Tereza bought an ice cream at the ski resort and me, a coffee. We were shattered by the time we arrived back to our hut, which shouldn’t have had any room for us, but the owners kindly let us sleep on the benches of the dining annexe. (Though, less kindly, they charged us 50 cents per 1/2 litre of boiled water for pasta.) We allowed ourselves a long lie and celebrated with a hearty Slovakian breakfast the next morning before our descent back to Tatranská and, gradually, to normality in Krákow.

So that was that adventure, I’m pleased to say. Definitely more strenuous than I’d planned, but hey – we grow through challenge!

You can read more about adventuring in Eastern Europe on my blog here.

Mountains of love,