Hiking Rysy in the Tatras Mountains, Poland

It was finally the time to climb the highest peak of my home country – Rysy in the Tatras Mountains in Poland. The mountain itself lies between Poland and Slovakia and has two summits; one on each side of the border. The lower one stands at 2499m and belongs to Poland. It is the highest peak of the country and at the same time one of the peaks of The Crown of Europe. The Slovakian summit is only 4m higher and just a few meters away, though it’s not the highest one in Slovakia.

The Journey

We landed in Krakow on Saturday morning, stopped for a quick lunch and headed straight to Zakopane, the main town in Tatras Mountains. We stayed in Villa Pod Orlem, which was fantastic for its price and only 10 mins walk from Krupówki, the main street with all the bars and restaurants. It’s such a cool place … surrounded by cute little mountain houses and kind of Christmas spirit all year round. I strongly recommend visiting it if you’re in the area.

The Climb

To climb Rysy, we chose a route through Czarny Staw which is supposedly the safest and easiest way up on the Polish side. We woke up super early and left at 6 am sharp to allow enough time for the long hike.

We took a 30 mins drive first from Zakopane to Palenica Białczyńska where the trail starts. There was a car park which was already busy at that time and supposedly gets even busier by 9am; which is something to be mindful of. You can also take a bus from Zakopane if you wish, but it starts running at 7.30 am, so consider a taxi if you’re keen to start as early as we did.

The first two hours up until the 9km mark was easy. We followed a concrete road to cut the turns through a little path, but were still close to the road. It was around a 2-hour walk. In the end, there is a spectacular view of Morskie Oko, a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. There is also a chalet where we had a warm drink, food and even a beer.

We stopped there for a few minutes for the toilet, food and of course an Instaphoto opportunity … not just for me but also Sabina, a travel blogger from @samaprzezswiat who joined us for this trip! We both took some extra time to snap a few pics of course!

Forty minutes later, we reached the next gorgeous lake, Czarny Staw. Some people say it’s even more beautiful, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide. At this point, you’ll see a lot of people casually coming to see the lake, with children, dogs, no ‘real’ hiking gear, and some people even wearing flip-flops.

From this point on though, we only saw those with professional gear heading for the summit. The views were utterly stunning. It took us just over 2.5 hours to reach the summit from the last lake, 5.5h from the car park.

The summit of Rysy was incredibly busy but was utterly magnificent. We had great weather as well, which made the difference. We took some group photos, had a rest and some of the group headed straight down while a couple of us headed over to the Slovakian side. It’s only 5 mins away, so why not!

Another few pics later from the Slovakian side and we decided to head down.

It was a bit tricky going back through the chains. To start with, it’s always more dangerous to go down when it’s that steep. But also, the majority of people chose to go up on the Polish side but back down on the Slovakian side, so it was pretty much one-way traffic. We got held up at bottlenecks right at the top, though it wasn’t too bad of a wait. Nothing like the bottleneck seen on Everest in 2019 season shot by Nims (Insta @nimsdai)

It took us about 5 hours to descend with a long stop for a well-deserved beer at Morskie Oko, of course!

The Hike

Overall, it was one of my favourite hikes with the group. It was a long route; around 5.5-6.5 hours to reach the top, and still quite technical towards the end. As mentioned earlier, at moments, there are even chains attached to the side of the mountain to help with the steep climb. And at a couple of points, you have to pass a sheer drop, so you have to be careful. If you’re worried about that, try the route on a Slovakian side. It’s much shorter and more accessible, though less spectacular.

Interested in joining me on my next trip? Find out more here!