The Karkonosze Mountains
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2005
1
7
14
Trip End
Ongoing
Karpacz, Poland
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
The next day we continued on to Karpacz ("car-patch"), a popular spa town at the foot of the mountains. The bus ride there was really beautiful, with lots of picturesque little towns set against the mountains. The town was unbelievably touristy, and there seemed to be an unlimited number ways to make a living off of it. Restaurants, tourist stalls, taxis and minibuses, hotels and hostels. Every house we saw had rooms available, and they weren't cheap. We stayed at a big hostel on the edge of town called "Wodomierzanka," loosely translated by Monika as "woman who reads water meters." It was filled with screaming kids on a camp trip, and had goats, chickens and turkeys wandering around the property.
The highlight of this trip was climbing Mount Sniezka (snowflake), the highest mountain in the Sudeten chain (~1600m). We bought a trail map of the region, but got directions to where we were supposed to start our hike from a woman in our hostel who had done the climb before. Unfortunately, she didn't know what she was talking about and we ended up getting lost in the forest near wolf river, adding an hour onto our day. We found our way eventually (thank God Monika speaks Polish) and started our climb. The first part of the hike was really tedious and not very rewarding. The path was basically just a long pile of jaggedy, uneven rocks strewn up the mountain, and the forest we were in was nice but nothing special. It was also swelteringly hot. We stopped and had lunch at the point where several trails joined, and the hike after that was amazing. We hiked for a while through forest and trees, again through rocky trails but the path was on the edge of the mountain so the view was fantastic. As we climbed the trees got shorter and shorter, eventually disappearing. It seemed like every time we turned around the view behind us was even more amazing. There were many others climbing that day and there was a really nice atmosphere. Everyone was friendly and said hello, and since we had to stop and rest frequently we would pass the same people over and over. That trail led us to a major rest area on a lower peak, where lots of trails joined again. The mountains were right on the border of the Czech republic, so there were trails from the Czech and from Poland, as well as chairlifts from the bottom, so suddenly there were a million people. The climb from there was only another half hour or forty five minutes, taking us to the top of Sniezka. That part wasn't as enjoyable, but we wanted to reach the top. There were so many people, and the view wasn't nearly as nice as from lower down. The path wound along the edge of the mountain, with a low wall about a foot high to stop us from falling off the edge. The wall had already crumbled away in several places, but the path was pretty wide. The upper parts of the mountain were completely covered in loose rocks, it was amazing that no one caused a major avalanche. In fact, there were signs in several places along the whole trail to beware of falling rocks and avalanches. After reaching the summit, we climbed back down to the rest stop and took a chairlift to the bottom. We had wanted to explore the top of the mountains a bit more, but I had hurt my ankle and Monika had hurt her foot, so we descended.
The next day we went to the town of Sobieszow to see Chojnik Castle (hoy-neek), at the top of a rocky escarpment about 800m high. We were freaking exhausted from the day before, but we were leaving the next day and really wanted to see it. The climb was relatively easy, maybe an hour or a bit more, and the forest around us was beautiful. The castle was really cool, although it's probably worth it to get up early and see these places before everyone else gets there.
The next day we headed to Wroclaw, where Monika caught a train home to get ready for her brother's wedding. It was sad that our travelling companions had all left, but we felt ready to continue on our own.
