The Valley of Five Polish Ponds
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2006
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73
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Trip End
Sep 08, 2008
Zakopane,
Southern Poland,
Poland
Saturday, March 8, 2008
We rose early the next morning to a somewhat overcast day, but we weren't going to let that stop us as we stocked up on some food before boarding a minibus for the short trip to Lysa Polana, some 20km east of Zakopane. I'd already been out this way some ten months earlier, when I visited Morskie Oko, but there was one corner of the Polish High Tatras I still hadn't seen, which required setting off from the same spot. Our plan for the day was to hike half way to Morskie Oko, before turning off and continuing through the Roztoki Valley. We would then have a short but steep 300m climb to the Valley of five Polish Ponds (Dolina pieciu stawow polskich), where we planned on spending the night in the highest mountain lodge in the country, at 1670m.
The walk down the road to Morskie Oko was pretty straight forward, following a disused tarmac road, but the going got a little tougher as we entered the snowy trail that was to take us through the Roztoki Valley. We made our way through here at a steady pace for a good hour or so before coming to the foot of a very steep climb up to the hostel. Without gaiters of crampons, I knew this wouldn't be easy, and I wasn't wrong, as I scrambled up through the at times knee deep snow for almost an hour. Strangely enough, we encountered two women having quite a heated argument up here. The view at the top was well worth it though, looking down through the wide valley and the frozen lakes, with the silence deafening. It was stunning, and unlike anything I'd seen in the Tatras before. The surrounding mountains weren't as imposing as those I'd seen in Slovakia a few weeks earlier, but the scale of the valley was quite something.
After checking in at the hostel and discovering how little there was on offer in the way of vegetarian food, we decided to make the most of the remaining few hours of daylight and continue on up the valley. I wanted to make it to the top of a ridge some 4km away, but the snow was so thick it made the going quite tough, and we modified out goal to make it to a rock about halfway up the ridge. The view from here was spectacular, watching the clouds come into the valley and work their way up over the lakes and our route. At one point we saw a group heading up to what seemed like a very sharp drop off, but their leader managed to figure out what was going on before it was too late, and they found another way down. After having a rest for 15 minutes, during which time Steve disproved the snowball effect, we decided to head back down to the lodge, where we settled in with a pint of Zywiec and a couple of games of cards.
The weather the following morning was perfect. I rose just after 7am, and after peeking out the frosty window and glimpsing the blue sky, I quickly dressed and raced outside to take some photos. It was deathly quiet, with the blue and white colours making for some terrific pictures.
We had a big breakfast and got on our way soon after 8am, hoping to make Morskie Oko by midday. Unfortunately, due to the amount of snow cover the direct route was closed, so we had to go back down through the Roztoki Valley before continuing up another valley to what was the most famous part of the Polish Tatras. Second time around the 'Eye of the Sea' didn't disappoint, although there'd be no diving in and swimming to the Adriatic as legend had it told, as a thick layer of ice and snow covered the picturesque lake. With the sun unlikely to disappear, we settled down for some more placki for lunch, before venturing out onto the lake to take some more pictures. It was a truly beautiful day, and we could easily have spent a few more hours in the area, taking in a second lake, Czarny Staw pod Rysami. However, we were a little tired after some 22km of hiking, and with another 9km to go back down the road to Lysa Polana, followed by a couple of hours on a bus to make it back to Krakow, we decided to make a move.
It was my fourth time hiking in the Polish High Tatras, and yet again it didn't disappoint. Each time I went somewhere and saw something different, and this trip will be remembered for the huge amount of snow cover I saw at the Valley of five Polish ponds with Steve. It was a great couple of days in Poland, although we were starting to get excited about the Mars Volta concert in Glasgow in just two sleeps time.
