On the two-thousanders of the Low Tatras

Itinerary

• From the Jasná ski resort, the P trail leads for a few meters to the Kamenná chata (Stone) mountain hut.
• From the mountain hut, we take a round-trip detour on the P▲ trail to the Chopok summit.
• From the mountain hut, we follow the P trail towards Gyömbér (Ďumbier).
• We descend back to the Krúpovo sedlo saddle, from where we follow the P trail to the left to the Chata M. R. Štefánika mountain hut.
• From the mountain hut, we head back on the P trail to the (signposted) Rázcestie na Krúpovo sedlo fork.
• From the fork, we follow the K trail left through the settlement of Kosodrevina to the Sedlo Príslop fork.
• From the saddle, we switch right to the S trail, which climbs up to below the Deres (Dereše) summit.
• From Deres, we turn right to the P trail, which leads back to the Jasná ski resort.

Detailed description of the hike

Distances of Chopok and ridge walk

We start our ridge hike from the top of the Jasná ski resort, from the Rotunda reception building. To the left rises Chopok, which at first glance is not really a summit, just a larger pile of stones—its name reflects this characteristic, as it means mounds or heaps. In front of it stands the modest-sized, modern Kamenná chata (Stone mountain hut). The building served as accommodation for workers building the lift in the 1950s; it was expanded with a dining room only in the next decade, and today you can sleep in the attic. Next to the hut, in a few minutes we can ascend (on the P▲ trail) to Chopok at 2024 m to admire the panorama that will define the next hours. To the east, the mass of Gyömbér (Ďumbier) hides most of the Low Tatras; to the north, the reservoir in the Liptov Basin (Liptovská Mara), Kócs-havas, and the Lesser Fatra are visible. The view is clearly dominated by the alpine outline of the Liptov Mountains and the rocky mass of the High Tatras beyond the basin. To the west, behind Deres, the main ridge is jagged with peaks, and the Great Fatra emerges in the background. Below, in one direction, the Demänovská dolina valley winds with wild spruce and limestone cliffs, while on the other side, the Bystrá dolina valley shows a much better view with its forest and modest resort.

Jasná (its name means “bright” and refers to sunshine) ski resort proudly boasts Slovakia’s largest connected slope system and a multitude of visitors year-round, thanks to the lifts winding on both sides. Therefore, we start the hike in quite a crowd on the P trail, crossing the stone sea of Chopok’s slope. We tread on a rock-paved path arranged to an almost absurd degree: the rocky trails were built through superhuman but voluntary work by university students over four decades from 1964. The work was done in summer with pickaxes and crowbars, rotating pre-selected blocks into the leveled base, and filling the gaps with gravel. The painstaking construction served two purposes: to prevent erosion caused by heavy traffic and to avoid accidents. (Moving on "unarranged" stone seas is by no means safe.)

We descend steeply to a saddle; opposite hides the mass of Gyömbér. A comfortable contour trail follows, bypassing two small humps on the south side, thus mainly looking out in this direction—to the edge of the Great Plain. Nearby are the huge forested mass of Polyána, the tilted back of the Klenóci-Vepor, and the Muráň karst plateau, all dwarfed by the size of the Low Tatras; in the background, the members of the Northern Central Mountains just appear. From the partially hidden Börzsöny through Mátra to Bükk, we can identify our homeland landscapes. Among Slovakia’s southern mountains, the Körmöci Mountains can be recognized, as well as the Selmec Mountains with Szitnya and Madaras’s long ridge. To the left, on a side ridge, the dwarf pine draws a sharp upper boundary: during alpine pasturing, vegetation wiped out at that time is being restored to protect the soil from washout.

On the back of the mountains

Comfort soon fades, and we begin climbing a rocky but well-built trail, during which Gyömbér’s huge, sloping ridge block appears again. From the Krúpovo sedlo saddle, staying on the P trail, we assault the summit with a roughly half-hour round-trip detour without stops. Here, the asymmetry of the terrain in the Low Tatras becomes striking: the ridge falls steeply on the north side with rugged cliff walls, while the south side slopes down evenly. This is due to glaciation because glaciers also fed persistent frost in the less sunlit northern valley heads; one may have reached even 5 km in length. We have seen the U-shaped (trough) valleys left behind several times on the way, and now the ice-carved cliffs also appear.

A gently ascending trail winds up to the highest summit of the mountain range, the 2045 m relatively flat and stone-covered Gyömbér (Ďumbier), crowned with a cross announcing its significance. We can look out from Slovakia’s heart, a distinguished point, where in clear weather, we can admire the unparalleled panoramic view of the Northwestern Carpathians. We see as far as the southern, lowlands edge of the Carpathians, to the north the rugged rock crowns of the Tatras along with the nearby Kócs-havas and the not-so-distant wooded ridges of the Beskids, and the alpine ridge of the Lesser Fatra also appears. But the wave-like, seemingly endless ridge above the forest line of the Low Tatras is also breathtaking, on whose northern side the wide valleys formed by glaciers emerge. And although slopes under Chopok were cleared in staggering areas with large signs, the world of white cliffs and dense pine forests to the east of the Demänovská dolina still provides a vast habitat for the most sensitive species restricted to their last mountain refuges. On the rocks of Gyömbér, we are often attentive to two typical residents of the mountains: marmots whistling from the crevices of the stone seas, and Tatras chamois moving with graceful ease in impossible places. Hunting once exterminated this gentle species, but in the early 1970s, a few dozen individuals from the High Tatras were reintroduced. Since then, their population has grown but is still considered small and may have hybridized with alpine chamois introduced into neighboring mountain ranges (Slovak Paradise, Great Fatra).

To the north, the view is magnificent towards one of the most beautiful and exciting corners of the Carpathians, the Liptov mountain world: to the clipped peaks of the Liptov Mountains and their continuation in the densely towering rocky mass of the High Tatras. Thus, looking at it all together, the Tatras region is not small at all, but its members are closely connected, and the loud statement that the High Tatras is "the smallest high mountain range in the world" loses its meaning. Incidentally, a massive mountain hut stood on Gyömbér’s summit from 1902 (thanks to the Hungarian Carpathian Association), but it was destroyed during World War I. Saying goodbye to the view, we descend back to the Krúpovo sedlo saddle, from where we continue left on the P trail.

Down into the forest zone

On a comfortable and scenic section, sometimes even spotting the roof of the mountain hut, we descend on the slope of Gyömbér, crossing huge tongues of debris. Their formation is due to frost during the Ice Age and temperature fluctuations around freezing, which fractured the rock; their barren covers have almost been "brushed smooth" along the trail path. From the world of huge, sometimes slightly rocking granite (more precisely granodiorite) blocks, the forested mid-mountains waving in the distance seems even gentler to our right. Our route is part of the "Slovak Blue Trail," a thematic hiking trail created along the path of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP), which leads across the country from Dukla Pass to Bratislava (more precisely, Devín).

Soon we arrive behind Chata M. R. Štefánika (mountain hut). (The memorial erected in the winter of 1944 commemorates those fallen in the World War II battles around here and partisans who crossed the main ridge.) From the saddle, at the end of Slovakia’s longest mountain range, we can survey the impressively massive range of the central and eastern part of the Low Tatras, ending with the giant recognizable by the antenna tower of Kráľova hoľa (King’s Hill). Looking back, we can observe the colorful southern slope of the traversed ridge. We can enjoy the view resting on the (southern panorama) terrace; the restaurant is inside. The house offering accommodation for 48 people (and more if necessary on the kitchen floor) began construction in 1924 to replace the mountain hut destroyed during World War I at Gyömbér’s summit, but the difficult construction ended only in 1928. Initially, the construction brigade also acted as the lodge staff—they reportedly earned 1 crown per kg of building material carried on their backs, while a beer cost 5 crowns for comparison. The lodge is named after Milan Rastislav Štefánik, a scientist mainly engaged in astronomy, a general in World War I, and an important figure in the establishment of Czechoslovakia. It is worth spending a night in the friendly, wood-paneled mountain hut at 1740 m and enjoy the sight as the vast snowfields turn red and their valleys are wrapped in mysterious dusk at sunset.

After resting, we start back towards the summits on the P trail, repeating only a short section of the path already taken. After a slight climb, a sign indicates a fork on a stone sea pavement—we turn left onto the K trail from here. Crossing tongues of debris, we plunge into the world framed by two-thousand-meter peaks of the Bystrá dolina valley, lined with forest. We walk in a reserve that also includes primeval forest patches, the valley, and Gyömbér. We descend for a long time through dwarf pine, then after a short, steep slope, reach a leveling path, also the forest edge. Now from below, we can admire Chopok and its ski resort, which we reach at Kosodrevina after a big bend and a substantial straight section on a comfortable path, equipped with two hotels and a lift station. The small settlement built in the 1950s means dwarf pine and offers a lift that can bring us back to Chopok if tired. Otherwise, we stay on the K marked path crossing ski slopes and winding among pines. Glancing back, we can enjoy the picturesque, downward view of Gyömbér and its genuine Carpathian mountain panorama.

Back to the ridge

Reaching the saddle called Sedlo Príslop, the hike's most challenging section follows: the S trail turns sharply right and upward on a relentlessly steep path aiming for Deres summit. Dense dwarf pine extending with stubborn branches often squeezes the track as most use the lift, so progress is not easy, and large stones test our knees in places. Leaving the dense pines, we reach the ridge on a rocky trail, passing abandoned ski lift poles—we can also climb the rocky fortress visible to the left, but from the grassy slope across Deres (Dereše, the Low Tatras’ westernmost two-thousand-meter peak), we can also enjoy the panorama. Below, the upper developed section of Demänovská dolina shows catastrophic-sized clear-cuts, and behind the limestone cliffy forehills, the Liptov Mountains and the High Tatras greet us again (along with the Beskids and Kócs Mountains). To the south, the northern side of Skalka summit has a small, frost-bitten niche worth mentioning, since it shows traces of ice work.

To the east, our nearby destination, the buildings of Chopok and the Jasná ski resort, draw attention. Remaining on the P trail, we close the hike on a meticulously built stone pavement, during which the rocky stonefalls of the northern slopes appear even more beautifully outlined than before, and we can bid farewell to Gyömbér from a pleasing angle. After a short descent, a few small climbs may sweat us before the end of our hike below the ski resort buildings.