High into Cloud, Lomnický štít, High Tatras, Slovakia

Zagan the motorhome’s happily free-camping his broad white ass off! He’s unmoved from his prime car park location in the Slovakian ski resort of Tatranská Lomnica (N49.16773, E20.27140). As I type this, the rain is on. It’s 5:30pm, and the car park’s rapidly being depleted of Slovak, Czech and Hungarian cars. No other motorhomes or campers to be seen.

Free-camping Zagan in Tatranská Lomnica

“Herrugghh. What’s that?” my eyes squinted as I re-entered the land of the woken, dragged back to conciousness by something odd. “Sun. It’s sunshine. Mountains!!!” Realising we might be able to see the High Tatras behind me, I swung myself out of bed and pulled back a curtain. Blue sky, sweet! But hold on a sec, there’s still a cloud crowning the peaks, as though they themselves we creating it, which I guess they were. After observing the sky for an hour we decided to go for it, handing over €96 (including a €4 deposit for the passes) once the ticket office opened at 8:30am.

There are actually three cable cars to get you right up to the Lomnický štít peak, up at 2634m, and the last of the three can only take 15 punters at a time (it’s an animal of a cable car!), so you’re given a timed slot. We got 10am, and by then the peak itself was well-hidden in the mists. The stunning views weren’t to be today, but we enjoyed every minute of it anyway, especially since it’s Monday morning.

Our trip up started well. A jolt from Ju just a few metres along the first ride spun me round to spot a deer making a dash for cover, a beautiful animal. There are bears, wolves and lynx knocking about in these woods, and we felt lucky to have spotted a big animal up here. As we’re not hikers, we don’t tend to see the rare fauna which I used to imagine only managed to survive in Europe ensconced in zoos, not out in the wilds mixed up with humans.

Deer! Through the scratched glass of a cable car, so apologies for quality…

A daughter and mother couple from the Czech Republic shared the second ride up with us, asking us about our trip. I’m finding this a bit awkward these days, to explain to people we’re travelling for as long as we want to. It takes most people aback, especially those who love to travel, and at least some of them would kill to have the opportunity we have, which is why we wrote about how we managed to do it (get the mini-guide here for free, spread the love folks).

The second lift drops you off at a mountain lake, Skalnaté pleso, which for us was half frozen, in mid May! The weather forecast was for -3ºC at the top, so we were well togged up. Later on we met a Hawaiian couple at the top, who exclaimed ‘oh my, oh my it’s cold’ over and again, quite accurately (see below). Ju loaned the lady one of her two sets of gloves, and the Hawaiian lady gave us some rather tasty macadamia nut chocolates from home as a thank you. Anyway, from the lake level trails lead off into the hillsides, with a beautiful view down over the Slovakian plain to the east. Adam and Sophie did some good hiking around here, and I can appreciate why they loved it so much.

The observatory at Skalnaté pleso

Half frozen lake at Skalnaté pleso

Trails across the Tatras from Skalnaté pleso

Come 9:45 the cable car for the final section drifted slowly towards us out of the mists above. We watched it fall from the sky before rolling upwards again. Heading inside before it docked, the cable car man attempted to stifle panic that we might not make it in time, but we all safely crammed in there. Not for the claustrophobic! Or those afraid of heights I would say, but we were only really aware of the crazy dangling predicament of the thing when we reached the top and the mists allowed a pleasantly eye-widening view of the vertical, ice and rock we were lazily clawing our way up. Right at the top the car stopped for a minute, dangling above the precipice, presumably to steady it but sending a shiver of nervous laughter through the cabin!

15 of us? In that? Yep, we all went in, with not much space to spare…

Up stairs and out into the open, the views were on strike, but the snow and ice was there in a vengeance. Sculptured by the wind into smooth flutes. Sheets of hard ice-covered snow flowed off the edges into nothing. Iced railings held us up as our booted feet slid around on the slippy stuff. We watched one couple with a toddler, wincing at the thought of a slight mishap which would send the nipper into the abyss. You’re given 50 minutes at the top, plenty of time on a frozen, viewless day like today, but the minutes still passed quickly.

A Bullseye style ‘Look at What You Could Have Won’ poster up at the peak of Lomnický štít

The Lomnický štít webcam showed the air cleared a little after we came back down, but only for an hour or so. It seems getting decent weather up there is a hit-and-miss affair

Back in Zagan, we’ve had some fun with Charlie’s nose. Once again he’s managed to sniff something up his black nostrils, sneezing and snuffling and whining. Nothing could be seen until, after a good day’s huffling and some encouragement from Ju tickling his nose with a piece of kitchen roll, he’s sneezed out the tiny end of a long piece of grass. Ju used tweezers to whip it out, at which point he ate it. Dogs are weird.

Spot the grass

The challenge is now on to sort out where to go next. This is a grand free camping spot, with Dyson-Blade loos and free WiFi even, and it’s tempting to stay a third night. The weather may decide for us. Our other options are to head north from here into Poland, or use Slovakia’s motorway to get further east, turning north into Poland before Ukraine. We need to work out a route across Poland to decide really, job for this evening over a Lidl lager!

Cheers! Jay