A day in the Zemplén wilderness

Itinerary

• Leave Regéc on the Z trail.
• After a steep, coniferous forest climb, when the Z trail sharply turns left, we continue straight uphill on the unmarked bulldozer road, bypassing the Tokár Peak from the southeast.
• We join the K trail and continue our path to the right on it.
• To the left branches the K▲ trail, where we can visit the Nagy Péter-mennykő.
• We walk on the K trail until the Mlaka Meadow, where we take the K▲ trail up to visit the Sólyom Rock.
• From the Mlaka Meadow, the S trail leads to Rostalló, the narrow-gauge railway terminus.

Detailed description of the route

We start the route in Regéc from the moderately tasteless visitor center. There is a buffet that doubles as a small convenience store at the center. It's worth stocking up on anything you might not have packed beforehand, as a long, hard hike awaits. At the junction in the village center, we turn right, climb a short serpentine, and walk for a while through pastures at the edge of the village. To the right branches a dirt road leading to the forest parking lot under the castle, offering a beautiful panoramic view of the castle hill.

The asphalt path soon bends left, and a few meters later we leave it to the right, cutting off its bend on the trail. We cross the road and pass through an electric fence open at the pasture edge, crossing the stream bed to reach another pasture. The poorly and rarely marked (and even more rarely used) hiking trail runs along the trees, and looking back, we are again greeted by a beautiful view with Regéc castle in the center.

Stepping among the trees, we follow a winding bulldozer road for a long stretch, mostly along beech woods, alternating between young and old forests with stony soil. We cross a creek washout and soon take a left to a trail. We climb about one kilometer in a picturesque beech forest (passing the Rákóczi milestone decorated with a carved coat of arms, which we skip), and finally step back onto the forestry dirt road. We cross noticeably undisturbed, nearly natural forest patches. When the road sharply turns left, we continue straight, arriving at the most beautiful, lasting section of the trail. The path follows a brook's bed trickling through the dark, dense undergrowth of the coniferous forest, climbing steeply uphill amidst mossy, wild stones on both sides. This passage recalls the routes of the higher, wilder Carpathian mountains in a few hundred exhausting meters. At the edge of the coniferous forest, we come out into an open area and find ourselves on a bulldozer road.

The Z trail here turns left, but it’s better to continue straight ahead on the unmarked road, saving a relatively unstimulating half hour. On our right, a fence protects the young forest, then the landscape opens, flanked on both sides by huge, sadly clear-cut areas. Our view reaches all the way to the Great Hungarian Plain, and the heights around Sárospatak come into sight. On the left slope, beautiful rocks jut from the ground, no longer hidden by any vegetation.

The road reaches the corner of the fence and joins the National Blue Trail. From here, except for the climbs to the two lookout points (Nagy Péter-mennykő and Sólyom-bérc), the path continues level or downhill. After about 1 km, we already stand at the junction of the side trail to Nagy Péter-mennykő; a few years ago, informative signs were installed to help find the previously harder-to-locate trail. First, we cross a high-grass, marshy clearing where some birches that prefer cooler conditions also appear. At the far edge of the clearing, we enter an old, stony-bottomed beech forest. We pass through a beautiful stand and finally, beside a lightning-struck tree, emerge onto the breathtaking summit of Nagy Péter-mennykő.

From the stone tower carved and shaped by frost during the ice ages, we can see as far as the Milic group surrounding the castle of Füzér, the highest point of the Hungarian section of the Zemplén Mountains. Behind it to the right (on a clear day) appears the Vihorlát massif, comparable in height to the Mátra Mountains. Turning far right, we can see the Kemence stream valley, along which the narrow-gauge railway tracks run. The long, winding valley is flanked in places by sharply ridged, steep slopes, and the characteristic tent-shaped peaks are most typically seen near Sátoraljaújhely, although only the peaks of this group break through the cover. The rugged structure of the Zemplén is well visible: there are no extensive plateaus, only deeply incised valleys dissect the landscape. Huge forest areas lie before us. However, in the isolated inner corners separated from settlements, we unfortunately encounter the signs of huge adjacent clear-cuts in basically any direction. The rails laid in the Kemence stream valley, collecting the runoff from the mountainsides, also tell of the region's old tradition of industrial-scale logging.

Returning to the K trail, we continue on it for another approx. 45 minutes. We pass through a coniferous forest, during which we hear the distant rushing of a stream from the valley depth. The forestry road soon turns left, but the hiking route continues straight down, entering the cool microclimate of the bowl-shaped István-kút birch grove. This birch grove is a highly protected glacial relic. This is a notably unusual atmosphere: light and scents here differ completely from those in the familiar beech and oak forests of Hungary. At the end of the descent, we arrive at the National Blue Trail checkpoint, the István-kút hunting lodge. The building operates as a hostel, offering a very cozy place to spend the evening. In front, the K● trail starts to the nearby, abundant, reliably flowing spring, István-kút. If we continue a few meters further on the path, we reach a pond with duckweed; on its far side stands a dilapidated but fairy-tale-like wooden cabin. This birch grove with its cabin and small pond is like a piece of Lapland in atmosphere. It’s worth camping here, far from everything, as nowhere else in Hungary can one find such a landscape.

Leaving the birch grove, we pass again through beech forest: the forestry road leads out onto the Mlaka Meadow (resting place with a stone fire pit and rain shelter). The Mlaka Meadow is also a typical somewhat marshy clearing in Zemplén, but what really makes it exciting is the short hiking trail branching off southwest from the S trail, leading to Sólyom-bérc. Sólyom-bérc, just like Nagy Péter-mennykő, is a cryoplanation rock complex and the longest one in the mountain range (its height approaches 30 meters). On the ascent, we climb between strikingly green moss-covered stone bastions and are greeted by a stunning view at the top of the rocky plateau. Although the panorama is not wide, endless forests cover the slopes of the Háromhuta valley behind the gray andesite towers. To the right, parallel ridges run one after the other, to the left the long ridge leading to Magoska encircles the Regéc castle hill rising in the center of the view. We stand at a wild lookout in a secluded corner of the Zemplén wilderness, finding it hard to say goodbye to the panorama.

But we must, for our final stop is still about an hour’s walk away. Returning to the Mlaka Meadow resting place, we leave the K trail and follow the S signs for the last 4-5 km. The Devil’s Creek accompanies us along beech forest in its initially gorge-like, deep valley, flanked by very high and steep slopes. We descend comfortably on a road in the valley side, and when we approach the creek, the hiking trail cuts the serpentine. We cross the watercourse, still trickling even in summer, several times, step over a barrier, and finally arrive beside the beautifully renovated lodge at the hardly built terminus of the narrow-gauge railway at Pálháza.