Adventure hike among the cascades of Suchá Belá

Itinerary

• From the bus stop or the parking lot, follow the P marker to Podlesok center.
• From Podlesok, the Z marker leads through the Suchá Belá Gorge.
• At the rest area above the gorge, turn left onto the S marker, which we follow up to the Pod Vtáčím Hrbom junction marked with a sign.
• From here, descend back to Podlesok following the P marker on the left.

Detailed tour description

At the gorge mouth

The P marker leads between parking lots into Podlesok (Erdőalja) resort area, where you can find a campsite, restaurants, and buffets, as well as several accommodation options in the broader center area. Crowds are common here as this is the starting point of Slovenský raj's (Slovak Paradise) most popular gorge valleys, and also the shortest hiking trails lead down here from less frequented ends. Among gently sloping hills opposite are barely visible grooves only the Suchá Belá gorge’s crevice, which even in the widening meadow at its mouth needs signposts due to how little it hints at the wild rocky spectacle cutting through the Káposztafalvi Karst limestone mass. We switch to the Z marker, and right past the national park entrance booth selling tickets, the gorge tour begins as we descend into a generally dry or slightly wet, gravel-lined streambed.

The name Suchá Belá has two Hungarian equivalents probably with the same meaning (Száraz-Fehér-völgy and Száraz-Béla-völgy), both capturing the gorge’s characteristic: both dry (suchá) and white (belá) refer to the characteristic limestone features. The creek cutting into the rock sometimes disappears (especially in the lower section) as it dissolves into the rock body and flows underground further, leaving a dry bed filled with white pebbles and bordered by rocks on the surface.

In the labyrinth of waterfalls and crevices

Most of the year, the lower section of the gorge is easily passable and serves as a pleasant introduction: sparkling in a bed shimmering with puddles of willows or a few centimeters of stream, we can move forward effortlessly. Where the bordering cliff walls grow and nearly meet, log ladders and logs laid over the creek decorate the crevices, and sometimes chains or metal plates driven into rocks provide grip. A genuine primeval forest flanks the increasingly rocky environment, enjoying the highest level of protection as a reserve along with the gorge.

The Suchá Belá sometimes widens, sometimes narrows, but the limestone ridges gradually take on ever more threatening, higher forms. After a narrow section with metal plates, a cliff supported by sticks according to local customs leads up to the most photogenic spot of the gorge, the Tálias Waterfalls (Misové vodopády), compressing the wild romanticism of Slovak Paradise into one location. At first, it is not even visible where the water finds its way among the huge limestone bastions; only the dimly translucent light and the ladder laid next to the cascade, along with hikers climbing up, indicate the route. (At the beginning of the 20th century, this was the end of the gorge trail; the waterfall was bypassed by early tourists using the hillside.) Climbing half on all fours on the iron ladder we can see under the intermediate steps of the waterfall chain rock basins named after their formation and a chain offering a grip on our left. However, the real excitement unfolds only on the first "floor" with a frighteningly deep chasm: metal plates fixed to the cliff lead under two nearly vertical, large ladders. The place is both harsh and impressive with the walls arching over amplifying the roaring sound of the water.

From the top of the approximately 30-meter-high waterfall chain, we proceed along metal plates through a narrowing one-meter wide gorge, marking the beginning of the middle section characterized by similar narrowings. The decayed, old log ladders are mostly replaced by much more durable and better gripping metal plate staircases here. In this middle gorge section, wider parts become fewer but are mostly still bordered by rough cliffs. A long series of plates climbs stepwise along the limestone wall along the streambed completely buried under sediment and leads to the narrowest part of the gorge, the Narrowing (Roklina). At first glance, it seems impossible as if the rock was cut in two with a knife, barely allowing a person on the small metal plates, while the water roars meters below (possibly giving the old name Gugyor). There are no chains because the two walls almost touch.

Across from here, we reach one of the gorge’s most striking and, according to many, most beautiful points, the courtyard of the Window Waterfall (Okienkový vodopád). A 12.5-meter height difference bridged by several steps and basins invites with a ladder upwards, where we need to crawl through a small rock window. At the top, a log bridge and a series of plates make the narrow rock corridor passable, which empties into the much gentler (named after its basins) Turtle Waterfall (Korytový vodopád).

Rock corridors and cascades

After the plates and small ladder, we reach the last but again spectacular section of the gorge. Since we are close to the plateau, and the creek is fed by few tributaries, its power here was sufficient "only" to carve a narrow rock corridor; thus, the adventurous trail is decorated by smaller waterfalls and rapids, a dark rock corridor, and lower walls compared to earlier. The log ladders and grooved stone steps lying in the streambed, now slippery due to water spray, are a thing of the past; wire ropes and metal plate stairs invite you down to the cool, dark limestone corridor of the Cascades (Kaskády). The long and spectacular but rugged crevice is closed by a few smaller waterfalls, alongside which, stepping on plates and a few regularly round basin pools, the gorge tour ends.

A few more log bridges await us, but we climb in beech woodland on the increasingly steep descent to the source of the creek carving the gorge. A small wooden hut covers the spring – at the beginning of the 20th century, a hunters’ lodge offering tourist accommodation was also near the spring. Today’s rest area is found along the road above, with a rain shelter, benches, compost toilets, and a summer bike rental making it possible to return to the starting point comfortably on quality two-wheeled roads.

Back to the mountainside

From the rest area (marked on maps and signs as Suchá Belá, vrchol), we turn left following the S marker and wind through a wide forestry road in mixed forest. For now, the trail is flat as we walk on the largest and central plateau of the Káposztafalvi Karst, the Glac plateau (or Glatz plateau, in Slovak: Glac) bringing life to the streams with its springs. Our centuries-old route connecting Spiš and Gemer across the mountains is also named after this (Glac trail, Glacká cesta). (The now closed southern section hides one of the first human-built structures in Slovak Paradise, a bridge ruin.) After about half an hour, from a forest path junction (Pod Vtáčím Hrbom), you can turn towards the Kláštorisko (Menedékkő) settlement, where a buffet operates seasonally. However, our tour turns left onto the P marker, descending on the karst slopes through mixed forest and often fragrant pine woods. The wheel tracks make large bends, but the path usually cuts across them. At one point, Hrabušice (Káposztafalva) is clearly visible below, we pass a spring and then finally leave the switchbacks, returning to Podlesok on a steep, rocky path with barriers and sometimes steps, where restaurants and buffets nicely conclude the tour.