The next morning I woke up and it was light out. I looked at my phone and it said 04:15am. I thought, that can’t be right. I figured my phone did not update to the new time zone, but when I Googled “what time is it in Krakow?” it came up with the same time. I walked around utterly confused for a few minutes wondering, did I get the latitude of Poland completely wrong? Are we above the Arctic circle? No, it turns out we are just on the eastern edge of the time zone and it gets really light here, really early.
Had a good breakfast at the hotel and walked to the local bus stop where I was to catch a 3 Hr bus ride to Zakopane, the gateway to the Tatra Mountains. I stood for about 45min waiting for the bus to come that according to my app should roll by every 30 minutes. Eventually a student confirmed I was in the right spot and maybe the first bus just didn’t show, which was in fact the case.
Zakopane is pretty touristy, but not terrible as I feel Poland is not a hot destination, so touristy meant it was full of Poles from around the country, not around the globe. I did not checkin my backpack at the airport, so that meant no hiking poles or sharp objects. I could do without a multitool on this trip but I was humble enough to know that I was not fit enough to handle this without hiking poles. I stopped at a sporting goods store to buy the cheapest pair and also a paper map of the network of trails. With that and a flask of whiskey and I headed back to bus station to catch a van towards my trailhead.
I had to use the bathroom at the bus station, and the lady who collects the 5 PLZ for admittance was pissed that all I had was a 20 PLZ bill. I mean like overly pissed at me, or that’s what I assume cause she had all this extra stuff to say to me. What else could there be to say at the bathroom stall when you hand someone money?, “don’t go messing up my bathroom in there!” might also have been an option, I guess.
Just walking from the bus to town and back to the van was about 1 mile. I was thinking, “Man this backpack is heavy. My shoulders hurt” Definitely not a good sign at the start of a 6 day hike in the mountains. I didn’t really have too much I could jettison at this point. I mean I could have really dumbed it down to just clothes and made it 5lbs instead of 25, but I always prepare for all outcomes. I remember reading Werner Herzog's autobiography last month and envied how he would just get off a plane with nothing but a toothbrush. It sure would be more relaxing and chill to just do this hike with no backpack and go from one hut to the next, but I am not that guy as much as I would like to be.
Before leaving Zakopane and cell phone coverage, I did look up at the mountain and noticed snow but not a terrible amount. I figured I was safe to cancel my backup rooms for the bottom of mountain in case I could not make it to all the huts because the trails might be impassable. See what I mean about always being prepared.
Here is some maps on my location and route
Two things to notice above. One, I was not following a defined trail. This is a network of trails all color-coded. I stitched together a route (purple in middle picture) that allowed for about 6Hr of hiking each day with an end at a lodge with a warm meal and bed. The second thing to notice was the Left to right elevation map at the bottom of the image above. As you can see, this is alpine hiking. Up and down. I thought that the huts would be up near the peaks, but in fact you came down each night to the hut. This was not as cool as I had hoped, for 2 reasons. First, it meant I had to hike down in the evening knowing what I had in store for me the next morning and second, the huts were more crowd with day-trippers / tourist who could walk a paved road 2 miles to the hut and chill with their strollers all day before retreating to their Zakopane hotels in the evening. Reserving these huts was a mess. When you are booking hut-to-hut hikes you kinda gotta know if you can get the next hut before booking the one following, or it screws up the entire route you envision. Me, the planner, created various routes and lodging options in case 1 piece fell through. And as I mentioned no one speaks English. So I am contacting these huts by email with the help of Google translate. And some of these huts work on a sort of lottery, while others open up an online system on 1 day at 8am and the system crashes and/or my attempts to login from USA were being rejected. Eventually I got lucky and there were some cancellations and I got all the huts I wanted. The email communication sure were interesting as I knew Google translate was butchering my intended communications. Who knows what I reserved.
The first day was easy. I was hiking to the first hut, following one of those paved roads I mentioned above for the day-trippers. I did not want to stress the itinerary too much in case there were problems getting out of Krakow.
After about 3 Hours I made it to the first lodge, Chochołowska Valley,
I was able to check in early and sat back and had a few drinks
I forgot a European charger for my phone. Fortunately the front desk had an extra, but asked me to return it the next day at checkout. This left me with a dilemma for next 24hrs. I was going to be out here 6 days and I needed this charger to follow my route on the phone as the paper map was not all that great. I could either steal the charger or beg her to let me buy it from her but either way I had to have it. I thought about it more than a healthy individual should, and decided to beg her to let me buy it, knowing that I was not going to accept no as an answer and potentially making the situation uncomfortable. Before leaving the US, my partner has been telling me that I let people off the hook too easily. Instead of saying things like, “Can I ask you to help me transport this couch”, and shutting up. I always say, “But you don’t have to, really I don’t care I will figure it out” This was a good test to see if I can allow others to do me favors. I remnant of my youth where I cringed each time my father tried to extract as much free expertise from the car mechanic at the end of the street.
Having dinner I ran into 2 problems. First, I would take a picture of the menu and then have google translate do its magic on the picture as below
But then I would walk up and say like a dope, “I will have the Lard with Cracklings” They obviously don’t know what that means. Even if they did speak English they wouldn’t know what the stupid AI interpretation meant. Its like walking into McDonalds and saying to the cashier, “I think I will have potato sticks and major meat sandwich” So I had to go back to the polish picture of the menu, try and find the word that I think was the word that translated to “Lard Crackle” and zoom in and show them that. I looked real cool. Now, we ran into problem 2. After they took my order they handed me my beer and receipt and indicated they would call my number when it was ready. There was a bunch of people waiting so I went and sat outside. There was a speaker outside that played music. I was deep into my second beer and 10mg of THC as I heard the music stop with some announcement and back to the music. I looked at my receipt and saw the number 43. That is when it hit me, like I said, I was a bit stoned so it took a bit. How the hell was I supposed to know when they called my number? I looked up the word for 43 and it said “czterdzieści trzy” I sat there listening for a bit actually thinking I could determine when they said it before realizing it would never work. I went back inside and decided to just loiter at the counter like a creep looking at the type of food coming out and at each persons receipt as they came up to get it like I was some sort of receipt police.
While I was standing there I had another realization. In USA there are so many cultures mixed together, since our country was only 400 years old, that you don’t realize how similar everyone from one country looks. While walking around I had already seen my neighbor, a kid a went to high school with, and 3 Volodymyr Zelenskyys (Ukraine borders Poland on the East).
All the rooms are tiny with a simple 2 beds or 10 bed dorm style and a community bathroom and shower. I booked the 2 bedroom option and paid for 2 people even though I was alone. Each time I checked in there was confusion. “80PLZ/person, but you alone?” Yes, I was alone but I would be paying for 2 people. Long gone were the days I would save 80Plzs and end up with some weirdo sleeping in the bunkbed above me in a 2 person room. I wanted to tell them when they looked at me funny, “I do the same thing at the Hilton, pay for both queen beds so a am not sharing the room with a homeless man.”
That evening, in my inebriated state I went into bathroom. I could not tell if the door sign was women or men, so just checked both, but no urinals. I went into one stall and peaked in and saw this and immediately left to other bathroom.
A lady walked into the bathroom while I was in there, and I said and pointed to other room with a toothbrush in my mouth. She left and came back and said, no. I said ok and sheepishly walked to the other where she explained the door graphic. Earlier when I went into the first bathroom, my rat sized brain thought the above was a tampon dispenser. What’s wrong with me?
The next morning I checked out and explained that I needed the charger for 6 days and could I buy it? I then shut up. She rummaged around in her spare parts drawer and could not find a spare. I could tell things were getting uncomfortable for both of us but I stayed silent. She looked in other places and she said, “it’s the only one.” I responded, I am sorry, but I really need it and I am willing to pay for it." She finally relented and conveyed to just take it. I insisted on paying. I walked out of there with the charger, which really was the only option. I felt good about not stealing it, but felt unclean about forcing her to do me that favor even though I overpaid for it.
I was off. Should be a challenging day. My notes say: "from the hut in Dolina Chocholowska take RED trail to Trzydniowianski Wierch. It is a constant climb for over 2.5 hours, height gained is just shy of 700 meters. Trzydniowianski Wierch is your first mountain of the day. From there GREEN trail takes you to Konczysty Wierch (2002 masl) and then final big climb to Starorobocianski Wierch. At 2176 masl, this peak is the highest of the day. From Starorobocianski Wierch you’ll be mostly descending on GREEN to Hala Ornak Lodge."
Trzydniowianski Wierch (peak) in the background of the below picture
Finally up at the top
On my way to peak 2: Konczysty Wierch
And finally up to Starorobocianski Wierch
Now it’s all downhill from here.
These are the country markers. “P” on one side for Poland and “S” on the other for Slovakia
I strolled into Hala Ornak Lodge and checked into my 2 bedroom as the weirdo paying for 2 beds. Maybe they think it is selfish that I am taking up an extra bed where someone else could stay. If it was a 6 or 10 person room I might see their point but not a 2 person room the size of a shoebox.
I dropped my gear and repeated the steps almost exactly from yesterday including the THC dose, hopefully with a little more grace this time
I am looking at my notes from that night when writing this blog and see that I wrote, “Swing cat around on string. Are they allowed to do that to a live lemur. Terminator.” I am sure it was an earth-shattering epiphany I wanted to share with you all but I cant figure it out now.
Until Tomorrow,
Darren
