To convert metres into yards, add 10%. Altitudes are given in metres – for a rough conversion into feet, multiply by three then add 10%. Some altitudes are estimated from map contours.
Average gradients are calculated from the height gain or loss, divided by the estimated distance, so are themselves a correspondingly rough guide to the steepness of each route.
Height gains and losses are based on specific altitudes as shown on maps or signposts. We try to take into account rises and falls in between, using contours, and this may lead to some apparent anomalies.
For each route and section, an estimated walking time is shown in each direction, which generally corresponds to those shown on maps or signposts. They are usually on the generous side, and fit walkers may find that they can cover the distance in a shorter time. Walking times make no allowance for refreshment and other stops. It is not a good idea to make strenuous efforts to beat these times – much more enjoyment will result from taking your time and admiring the views and surroundings.
Within the longer path descriptions an idea of the time taken to cover each section is shown in italics at the end of the paragraph.
Every effort has been made to be accurate, but changes can take place, either through natural causes, such as landslides during the winter, or the Tatranská Bora (see page 72), or through human activity, such as forestry, removal or addition of a landmark, or human error!
Grading of walks
There are walks in the High Tatras to suit walkers of most degrees of capability, so the route suggestions later in this book are graded to help you choose. Inexperienced walkers should start with the easier routes, then if they can cope with those they may wish to try something harder, a grade at a time. Strong, experienced walkers should not ignore the easier routes – they may sometimes need an easy day, and sometimes the weather may restrict everyone to lower altitudes.
There is no official grading of waymarked routes in the High Tatras, so ours is necessarily arbitrary, and should be treated as a guide only. The path descriptions in Sections 3 and 4 give further information about specific stretches of route, including where you may expect to encounter scrambling or fixed wires.
Our grading is a quick guide to the terrain you may expect to encounter, but you should read the descriptive text as well before deciding whether it is suitable. You should also take into account the walking times shown for each route suggestion and path description. Do not overestimate your capability.
There are four grades.
Easy Mostly on paths, tracks or forest roads up to an average gradient of about 10%. Can be undertaken in trainers or tough walking shoes.
Moderate Mostly on steeper, rockier paths and tracks up to an average gradient of about 15%. No continuous scrambling or exposed situations, although there may be an occasional short section of this. No fixed chains. Walking boots strongly recommended.
Strenuous Very steep and rocky paths above 15% average gradient, usually including substantial sections of scrambling and exposure, and at least one fixed chain. Walking boots essential. Most of the high summits and passes on the waymarked route network come within this grade.
Difficult These routes can only be undertaken in the company of a qualified local mountain guide. Terrain as for ‘Strenuous’, but with more scrambling, fixed wires and other metal aids in exposed situations. Walking boots essential. The guide will advise if any other climbing equipment is necessary (this can be hired locally).
Sections marked (
SECTION 3
THE SLOVAK HIGH AND WHITE TATRAS
Later history
Excavations of Žltá Stena (Yellow Wall) near Tatranská Polianka have revealed the existence of a major fortified habitation that was destroyed by fire. It occupies a strategic site commanding extensive views over the Podtatranská Kotlina, the huge basin between the High and Low Tatras. The fort appears to date from the Bronze Age, at about the beginning of the first millennium BC, when the area was populated by Celtic people.
The area was invaded and settled during the 9th and 8th centuries BC by successive waves of Slavonic people who are thought to have originated in what is now eastern Poland and Belarus. One of these waves consisted of the Slovaks and the closely related Slovenes – in Slovak the words for these are respectively Slovensko and Slovinsko – who settled the area between the Tatras and the Adriatic Sea.
Approaching the summit of Kriváň (Blue 2903) (photo: R Turnbull)
During the 9th century AD this area was part of the Greater Moravian Empire, which extended from what is now the Czech Republic to Rumania, Moravia being the eastern part of the Czech Republic around Brno. Excavations at Slavkov, on the southeastern slopes of the High Tatras between Poprad and Starý Smokovec, have revealed the existence during this period of a human settlement, which could have been a resting place of some importance on the overland trade route linking the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. At this time the mountains were generally feared, visited only by an occasional brave hunter.
At the end of the 9th century the Greater Moravian Empire was destroyed by the Magyars and associated tribes, who are thought to have originated in that part of Asia immediately to the east of the Urals. They established a new homeland in what is now Hungary, driving a wedge between the Slovaks and the Slovenes. Slovakia was devastated, and became part of the Hungarian domain, with Hungarian nobility owning the land that continued to be worked by Slav peasants.
During the early Middle Ages, tribes living around the Tatras had a variety of origins, including Slavic and Germanic. Over several centuries they merged into a distinctive culture, which became known as the Góral, meaning ‘highlanders’. The culture persists today in the valleys around Ždiar in Slovakia and Zakopane in Poland, where the traditional costumes, cuisine, folklore and music can still be found.
A typical Góral farm building in Monkova near Ždiar (Green 5811) (photo: R Turnbull)
The 13th century brought further invasion and terror, this time by the Tatars from Central Asia. They totally destroyed the Sub-Tatras Basin and surrounding areas in spring, with the result that the entire population either died of hunger through lack of crops, or sought refuge elsewhere. Travellers reported that they had walked through the area for days without seeing any sign of human life. To restore civilisation, King Bela IV of Hungary invited people from German-speaking lands, especially Saxony, to settle in the more low-lying areas. This included the plain to the south of the Tatras, known as Szepes in Hungarian. The new German inhabitants called it Zips, and to modern Slovaks it is Spiš.
On the walls of the nave of the Roman Catholic parish church in Poprad can be found a painting dating from the late 14th or early 15th century. It depicts the Tatras as the background of a Bible scene. Another pictorial record, dated 1475, shows Lomnický Štít, the second highest Tatra peak. It forms part of the coat of arms of the Berzevicky family from the village of Veľká Lomnica. The oldest plan of the Tatras forms part of a map of Hungary, dated 1556 and drawn by the Viennese historian Wolfgang Lazius.
During the 15th and 16th centuries there was continuous strife, caused by religious enmity (especially between the Hussites, followers of the Bohemian Jan Hus, and the Roman Catholic church), by various claimants to the Hungarian crown, and by pressure from refugees from the wars with the Ottoman Turks, especially from Wallachia (Southern Rumania). This forced many Slovaks to take refuge in the mountain valleys, eking out their existence by resorting to poaching and robbery.
These disturbances were subsiding by the 17th century, and at the same time people all over Europe began to take an interest in nature study, and in exploring mountainous areas. In 1615 the first recorded climb of a Tatra