Leave your cigarettes behind

By Ian Hasset

The High Tatras run along the border between Slovakia and Poland (Photo by Ian Hasset).

That’s where we’re going!

Ah… We nodded our heads.

Now we had to face the facts. We had the phone number of a chalet in the mountains near Gerlachov, but hadn’t planned the route up. Sean is an experienced climber and outdoorsman, but the lack of preparation was still was foolish on our part.

We found a trail up from a small town along the low-gauge electric train line, and called the chalet. Sun goes down around what time? Sean asked. It was the end of October and the sun went down early in Eastern Europe, 4:30 p.m .if we’re lucky. It was already noon. That’s going to be a problem, Sean said with a nervous look, turning to the window.

We arrived in Poprad to a flurry of Slovakians and light rain. We’d been traveling for a week on an Eastern Europe Rail Pass that luckily included travel along the five countries’ local routes and included the electric trains heading up the mountain.

As we climbed further and further, the small houses were quickly replaced by woodlands and fields. At Studeneho Potok, we’d noticed the dew collecting on the ground and windows of the bus, and as we approached our destination the woodlands to either side began to disappear in fog. The fog was thick enough to taste and feel it’s texture on your skin, and as I sat on a wet bench to change into my boots, Sean nervously studied the Tatras Parks Department trail map-post at the town’s heart. Several arrows pointed us towards other chalets and areas of interest in Tatranska Lomnica but not to our Chalet, Pri Zelene Pleso.

It was already 2 p.m., and we hadn’t been able to get our hands on an official trail map. I turned to Sean who was pacing by this point, and having serious doubts if we’d make it far enough up the trail before nightfall. We headed north but hit one dead end after another, making circles in the fog. We managed to make it back to the Tatras trail map-post and a parked cop car that had appeared in our absence. After miming directions and speaking back and forth in broken Czech and English, a tall elderly man approached us with a bundle of flowers. Like a giant Santa Claus, he asked us if we needed directions in perfect English. Well we’re going to have to hurry, he said. I have a car, I can drive you to the head of the trail. From there you’re going to have to run when the sun goes down…

Sean let me make the decision. The man was holding flowers, first sign: he must be heading home to a wife, a girlfriend, to someone. He explained that he was an English teacher and loved to practice when tourists weren’t around. I decided to trust our new friend, Bernie.

Bernie wound up being harmless and incredibly helpful; As we neared our drop off point, I loosened my grasp on the opened Swiss Army knife in my pocket. You can never be too safe when you’re putting yourself in someone else’s hands, replied Sean as we got out of the car.

Into the woods…

After hitting a fork at the end of the mud tracks, we picked a trail and began to climb. The fog was almost impenetrable. The ground was like thick pudding, and we quickly realized the trek up would take much longer in this weather.

Sean whipped around as a light hit the back of his head. I followed suit to face a blinding light quickly approaching us. An old Soviet-era army flat bed pulled up beside us, and the driver signaled for us to climb in back. Passing through thick forest and then along a churning river, the low cloud cover reflected light in obscure places beyond the roads edge, and cast the closest visible trees in silhouette. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, the wind and branches closest to the truck whizzing by us, we held on as the flat bed climbed higher and higher.

We reached a plateau and the driver signaled for us to get out. It was already 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon and the sun would be down soon. After consulting a parks department map-post we crossed the river and headed into the woods. The light quickly diminished under the tree cover and as we climbed further along the uneven path made of boulders and small loose rocks, we decided to refrain from smoking or taking breaks along the way.

Somewhere behind us a branch snapped and then another. We stopped dead in our tracks, looking out into the darkness masked in fog. Nothing. After a minute we continued on. Better to walk away from the bears, I said. Several paces ahead a hand grabbed my shoulder and I spun around hollering like a tribal warrior. The driver of the flat bed stood behind us laughing his ass off. Chata Pri Zelene Pleso? he asked. He nodded and pushed between us heading at a true mountaineer’s pace up the path.

He was well over 60, but the man out paced us by several feet. After almost an hour, I had to stop. We did have at least 25 to 30 pounds of equipment on our backs, and after a night of drinking scotch and chain smoking, my lungs simply couldn’t handle it.

Sean turned to me, ghost white. Do I look that bad? He nodded and braced his hands on his knees. What do we do? I asked him. Keep going. We turned to find our guide long gone, nothing but fog ten feet ahead of us. Just keep your eyes on the ground; you don’t want to go over a cliff. I think we’re real high, he said. If only, maybe I’d enjoy this a little more. He laughed and we continued on.

Luckily the yellow path, the trail that led from our drop-off point to our chalet, did not hit another path. The higher we climbed the colder it got and the faster the light receded. We slid across stretches of the path now covered in ice; several times finding ourselves sliding in the wrong direction, or towards cliff edges or the river that would come in and out of focus, and reappear every few yards. Snow covered the visible land around us, and as we climbed the steepest piece of the path thus far, I looked up to find a flashing light coming from around the bend at the top of the hill. There! I shouted to Sean several feet ahead of me. What?! What?! he called out to me through the fog. A light, we must be close! We cheered and slowed our pace, stopping to hydrate.

We were both covered in sweat, our hearts pounding. We’d kept the pace that the flatbed driver had stayed at, afraid that we’d find ourselves lost in the woods, god knows how many miles away from civilization and in the snow. I pulled my gloves off and dried my face. The air’s thin up here, Sean said. I agreed and we kept on, rounding the top of the path to find nothing more then fog, trees… and the monumental looming silhouetted Gerlachov ridge, the sun fading behind it, the fog billowing over.

We continued down frozen paths, the sun now gone. Sean had brought a small flashlight and after retrieving it, and having a momentary meltdown and recovery of misplaced batteries, trekked on. Without the flashlight, we would have been forced to set up camp wherever we’d been when the sun finally disappeared behind the mountains. With the fog as thick as it was, moonlight meant nothing.After crossing over a bridge next to a lake, and up the boulder-steps leading to a cabin, we burst through the doors of our chalet with pride. We were greeted by a group of German mountaineers; the owner (our guide and flatbed driver), a female employee and the chef. We ordered the Bravcove pliecko s kyslou kraut a knedle (pork shoulder, sour kraut and bread dumplings); knocked back a glass of beer with our new German friends, ate our delicious meals – the only one we’d be able to afford – and passed out.

The next morning we found ourselves at the base of the mountain ridge we’d seen the sun disappear behind. Towering above us at nearly 8,528 feet above sea level, it was a formidable opponent and we immediately headed for its peak. Taking a trail that we’d crossed the night before, we meandered through breathtaking valleys, streams, waterfalls, and secluded mountain lakes.

By the middle of the afternoon, we reached the peak of Jahnaci, crossing the border into Poland. We were never able to scale Gerlachov. Our friend on the train was right, no one could climb the mountain without certification of skill and ability.

Later that evening we found ourselves again trapped in the mountains in the dark – this time without a flashlight, and at the base of a waterfall. We turned round to find the sun once slipping behind the mountains and as we scurried back down the loose boulders that formed the base of Jahnaci, Sean turned to me with terror in his eyes. Wait! Listen, he said as we reached the base. A small rock was falling down somewhere in the darkness from where we’d come.

Run!

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The Eastern European Rail Pass

With the European East Pass from Rail Europe, you’ll get unlimited train travel that lets you see more of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary. You’ll not just see but experience life in these scenic and unique regions, never to confuse them again. You can visit the birthplace of Mozart in Vienna and the land of paprika in – where else- Hungary. There’s monument-filled Poland, history-filled Czech Republic, and cave-filled Slovakia. Travel with a European East Pass from Rail Europe. What better way to find yourself well fulfilled.

* Unlimited travel on the national rail networks of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary.

* Offers 5 days travel within a 1 month period, consecutively or not.

* Valid on all direct trains through Germany between Kufstein and Salzburg if passenger does not change or leave the train.

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High Tatras Tourism Office

Poprad, Slovakia

This modern town of forty-four thousand inhabitants south of the High Tatras is a centre for tourism and leisure and the main gateway to this mountain range. It is an important communications nexus with an international airport (currently operating only for private and charter flights). A promising future is in store for the town’s engineering industry, exemplified particularly by the successful Whirlpool-Tatramat company, and for the region’s tourism.

The urban heritage reserve of Spisska Sobota is also a part of Poprad. This former market community has a uniquely preserved historical town square with a Romanesque church which houses a Gothic altar to St.George, the work of Master Pavol of Levoca.

Spisska Sobota is one of the best preserved historical settlements in Slovakia and a visit there offers a welcome complement to a walking or sports holiday in the High Tatras whose panorama it so enchantingly adorns.

The High Tatras:

The Tatra Mountains, Tatras or Tatra (Tatry in both Polish and Slovak), constitute a mountain range which forms a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They occupy an area of 750 km², the major part (600km²) of which lies in Slovakia. The highest mountain is Gerlach at 2,655 m, located in Slovakia. The north-western peak of Rysy (2,499 m) is the highest Polish mountain.

The Tatras consist of:

* Western Tatras (Slovak: Západné Tatry, Polish: Tatry Zachodnie, )

* Eastern Tatras (Východné Tatry, Tatry Wschodnie)

The Tatra Mountains are the highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains. Although considerably smaller than the Alps, they are classified as having an alpine landscape. Their high mountain character, combined with great accessibility, makes them popular with tourist and scientists.

Gerlachov:

Gerlachovský štít; (translated into English as Gerlachov Peak, Gerlachovský Peak or Gerlach Peak) is the highest peak in the High Tatras, in Slovakia, and in the whole 1,500 km (900 mi.) long Carpathian mountain chain, as well as in northern and eastern Central Europe.

Ian Hasset is a fourth-year cinema studies student at New York University. He is originally from New York. A version of this article was originally written for the Travel Writing class at New York University in Prague.