The Elusive High Tatra Mountains, Slovakia

Zagan the motorhome has a great view of the lower slopes of the High Tatras Mountains out of his windscreen in the ski lift car park in Tatranska Lomnica (N49.16773, E20.27140). Sadly the tops of the mountains are still being elusive, hiding themselves behind a bank of cloud. As the car park is free, and we’ve managed to find some free wifi too, we’ll hold out here to see if they appear tomorrow (weather forecast is predicting snow, so I won’t hold my breath).

Last night we both slept well, but I was woken early by the trains restarting. This turned out to be a good thing, as the car park started charging at 7am, and as I peeped out from behind the curtains I discovered that we were the only vehicle in the car park, and were being watched by two fellas in high vis jackets. A quick pack up of Zagan and I wandered over to them to ask how much it was as we were leaving now, getting out of there before 8am meant we were only charged for an hour at €1.80, a cheap night.

We’ve seen these in many forests. Finally, with the internet, we’ve discovered they are for catching male bark beetles, a pest to the pine and spruce tree.

Still bleary eyed we drove the short trip to the next resort. Here we were welcomed with signs pointing us to a huge free car park next to the ski lifts. Much nicer than Stary Smokovec where every car park charges and has its own little guard hut! We pulled in and had the car park to ourselves for about an hour, then cars started to arrive, lots of cars. We couldn’t work out what they were all doing here, the clouds were low and you couldn’t see the mountains, yet they were all queuing up for tickets up the gondola.  We checked the webcams, zero visibility at the first cable car station halfway up the mountain, and at the top the camera showed white cloud and white snow, yet still they went up. We can only think it’s because it’s Sunday and they have to be back at work tomorrow. We don’t, so we saved our money and stayed at ground level.

Chairlifts up into the cloud

Webcam showing Zagan in the bottom car park

Iced-up webcam at the top – brrrr!

As the cloud started to lift a little in the afternoon we went for a walk up through what used to be huge pine forests until Friday 19 November 2004, when a massive windstorm swept through this area with gusts of up to 165km/h (over 118km/h is considered a hurricane). During five hours the storm damaged almost a third of the park’s forest, an area 50km long by 2.5km wide. The effects are still clearly seen today, and replanting is still taking place.

First cable car station becomes visible

This area should be full of trees this tall, this one survived – just.

Replanted tree in the bottom centre surrounded by stumps of the felled trees

View from the ski run over the valley

Back in Zagan I finished reading a book that was given to us by our friends Larry and Lorraine who we met at their home in France last year. The book is called Jupiter’s Travels and is by Ted Simon. I’d never heard of him, but in the 1970’s Ted rode a motorbike around the world for four years and was the inspiration for Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s ‘Long Way Round’ adventure. The book itself is fascinating and makes what we are doing feel really tame, although I am pretty sure Jay would jump at the chance to do something similar.

Once everyone had gone home these chaps move in

While we didn’t spot a chamois, we think one went by recently….

….or way it one of these?

So today and tomorrow will probably be quiet days here in Zagan. We have the car park to ourselves once again and I think it’s time to crack open the bottle of Slovakian rose wine I popped in the fridge earlier.

Ju x<
PS – Didn’t realise our friend Mark Stevenson was here skiing (sorry Mark, couldn’t resist – always holding your poles!)