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Chocolowska to Grzes
The first mountain of our trip, my first
over 2000m, and my first summit higher than Ben Nevis.
We headed out of the hut, Chocolowska, and up through the forestry
towards our first summit of the day. Gresz isn't high, comparatively,
and is an outlier to peaks which themselves are outliers to the main
mountains of the Tatras. It is low enough that thick bushes adorn it's
summit, so without adverse conditions, there is little feeling of being
on a true mountain. But it wasn't all bad news for us - it was the
beginning of a long ridge leading to Wolowiec. Forestry gave way to bush
and views of the surrounding valley opened up. And when we came to the
ridge, views north to the flat plains of Poland came into view. A fog
seemed to hang over the plains - Poland is known for bad air quality and
it was evident from this view.
Shortly before we summited Grzes, the mountains to the south came into
view, across the border in Slovakia. They looked enormous, snow covering
ridges and pinnacles, cloud scraping the summit. It was a very dark
scene, epic to the extreme and like mountains I'd only seen in
photographs. I was astounded by their rugged beauty, but being on such a
tame ridge myself didn't seem to bother me.
To Rakon
The summit of Grzes was decorated in signs, notices and a cross. Not
exactly isolated. But we continued onwards and started making first
steps into the snow on Rakon. It felt like a complete unique situation,
for snow wouldn't fall over Scotland for another month perhaps, and now
we were walking straight onto snowfields. It's nothing special by world
standards, however all my walking up until now has taken place in
Scotland and it was great to see how the weather doesn't work the same
everywhere. Of course, this I knew already, but it is different to see
it in real life.
Wolowiec
Beyond Rakon, a snowy ridge led to a saddle then back up, steeply,
towards Wolowiec. A foot each in Poland and Slovakia, I crossed this
ridge feeling nervous about the snow. In Poland it didn't the done-thing
to carry axes - I saw about five on my entire stay - and we didn't
bother either. We hadn't stayed in any habitation long enough anyway to
go and rent one out and I don't quite know why we didn't pack them. If
Wolowiec was in Scotland, I'd have an axe but here I was without one (we
were all without) and I'd at least have to give the ridge a shot. Some
of the other guys had small strap on crampons - like plates with
downward-facing studs on them, though they doubted their efficiency.
Iain Alcock and Colin had been ahead of me on the ridge from Rakon, the
rest were behind, so before the climb to Wolowiec we stopped to see what
everyone wanted to do. After some discussion the general consensus was
to give it a shot. We headed upwards, myself on high alert, continually
assessing fall lines and checking downwards so I knew everything I
climbed up, could be safely descended. The drop into Slovakia looked
long and steep and I didn't want to go there.
As we climbed, I became surprised how easy it was. Often there was
little snow or just slush on the path, and snow were climbed by kicking
steps. Confidence rushed up, and by the time we were nearing the summit,
I was relaxed. I realised there was nothing to be worried about and I
eventually attributed my initial nervousness to it being the first time
I'd seen snow. In a sense I didn't know what to expect after several
months going without.
The cloud also came in at the summit and winds that had been building
all the way accompanied us at the top. The summit itself was adorned
with a marker informing us of our position on the summit of Woloviec,
although it called it by it's alternative name, Volovec. With wind at
the top, and a fair splashing of rain too, it felt more like a Scottish
winter than Poland in September. We met an equally wet Englishman on the
summit who had other plans - what, I can't quite remember.
Descent to Chocolowska
Then once cold and wet enough, we descended. I'd become quite cold on
top, so I headed down first. I could feel all the confidence I'd ever
need on snow and ran down the ridge at intervals. Only because I was
trying to keep warm and going at the pace of the crowd was doing me no
good. Down where we made our first decision to go up, I waited out of
the wind for others, and when they finally arrived, we decided to drop
into the valley and go back to Chocolowska the low way.
The headwall of the 'valley' (but I'd describe it as a coire, if it were
Scotland...) had the remnants of some pretty big avalanches, but the
slopes seemed to be safe now. The danger was in that the temperature but
warmer than freezing, but otherwise the snow pack seemed quite stable.
In any case, we chanced it and all was fine. We also had a Polish guy
who didn't speak a word of English following us - I assume he didn't
want to go first. We was amused at our antics of sliding on bums,
running through the snow, and sometimes picking up some pretty
impressive speed along the way.
As a result of all that, Colin and I arrived at the bottom of the
'coire' (?) quickly and waited a while for the other guys. I ate my
cheese sandwich, and once we'd been having a rest for maybe 15 minutes,
we moved on once more and back to Chocolowska.
Hut to hut: Chocolowska to Ornak
When we arrived back, the half-empty restaurant of the morning was now
full to the brim and we caught the free table, leaving damp rucksacks at
the door. After a meal, and a couple beers for everyone but me, we made
moves to begin the walk to another hut to the east called Ornak. The
actual day's plan, had the weather not changed things, was to walk east
along the ridges to a mountain called Ornak, sharing the name of the
hut, and then descend to our intended accommodation for the night. Since
we'd come back to Chocolowska, we needed to get to Ornak another way and
to do so, we went over a 1460m pass.
That walk was less eventful than the first day's walk - brutally steep
on the ascent side but easier going on the descent. I briefly played
with the idea of nipping up Ornak (the mountain) but disregarded it when
I got to the top of the pass, completely knackered and ready to go down.
On the way down to the hut, I forged ahead, put my music on, and with
Marillion blasting through my ears, began to enjoy the walk again. And
when I arrived at the hut, alone, with mist-shrouded mountains around, I
was suddenly very peaceful since I'd have a while until the rest made
it, and the hut looked very inviting. I sat down for a couple of minutes
but then the rest of the guys arrived after a couple of minutes and we
went inside.
Brilliant to finish the day with such a cosy place - in the end I drunk
just two pints and was pretty pished for it, jumping around and being my
drunk hyper self. Hmm...!!
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