Village visit from Szalajkaház narrow-gauge railway

Itinerary

• From the Szalajka House we follow the Z◼ mark to Mátraszentimre center.
• At Mátraszentimre main square we turn left onto the Z mark, which we leave to the left after the village border on the P marks.
• After crossing the main road we go down on the P+ mark.
• At a fork we turn left onto the S+ mark.
• After the Szalajka House fence we turn right and return on the Z◼ marks to the narrow-gauge railway terminus.

Detailed description of the route

The Szalajka House

Ecotourism is a relatively recent development in the relationship between people and the medium-height mountain ranges. For centuries, only timber and the economic opportunities it offered attracted people to these harsher climates and less accessible landscapes compared to flat lands. The narrow-gauge railway of the Great Valley began operating in 1906, transporting harvested wood and mined stone. As the early 20th-century name of the Northern Medium Mountains, "Mátraerdő," suggests, the inhabitants of the Carpathians identified this low, varied, but forested medium mountain area as a vast forest. After the changes to the borders following Trianon, nature walkers discovered the previously neglected and little-visited Mátra - for example, passenger transport started on the narrow-gauge railway in 1926. Until the 1970s, freight transport dominated, but the development of logging roads and more economical road (truck) transport rendered maintaining the railway network nearly unnecessary. Tracks were removed in many places, and today only the tourist function remains.

Starting behind a small rain shelter, the Z◼ marks accompany us to the fence of the Szalajka House. The forest lodge was renovated in the 2010s, but its name hints at its former purpose. The Latin sal alcalis gives rise to the word szalajka (wood ash), an essential component in glassmaking because it lowers the melting point of silicate materials. Silica (quartz gravel or sand), the base of glass, was mixed with wood ash (and lime). The glass furnaces consumed huge quantities of wood. In the Mátra valleys and later on the flat ridges, Slovak settlers who moved here after the Turkish period worked in the forests—the names of their villages (Felsőhuta and Fiskalitáshuta, today's Mátraszentistván and Mátraszentlászló) refer to their profession. The Szalajka House, built at the meeting of the valleys, once operated as a glassworks.

At the valley bottom

We walk past a pleasantly situated building and follow the Csukás stream into the narrow, shaded valley. In the past, railway tracks followed the watercourse all the way to the Blockhouse. The abundant, fast-flowing stream circles large, rounded andesite boulders. Due to the southern tilt of the Mátra structure, its longest valleys are found here on the southern side. These valleys extend under the mountain ridges, fed by many small springs nourished by rainfall on the Upper Mátra. At one point, we cross a dark, ominous fir forest affected by logging, then use the former narrow-gauge railway’s pillars to cross the stream—easily recognizable remnants of the old embankment.

A small meadow wedges into the forest, then at a fork, a dilapidated yet atmospheric log cabin faces us. At its start, it may have been a checkpoint at the Blockhouse where wood transport slips ("invoices") were managed. A few meters higher lies the grave of Jóska Bagi, a forest ranger from Galyatető who died in a hunting accident. The hiking trail climbs steadily, moving away from the streambed. We cross a stone field, with huge rock blocks lying here and there.

The Vadvirág tourist lodge

Our route makes a large loop to overcome the steepest slope and reaches the Upper Mátra asphalt road. This essentially brings us to Mátraszentimre, the former Ötházhuta, Hungary’s highest settlement. Five Slovak families moved here in 1900 from Mátraszentistván (Felsőhuta). A hotel stands at the bus turn-around—on the site of the former Vadvirág tourist lodge. In the early 20th century, Mátraszentimre was a clear-cut settlement surrounded by potato fields and meadows, without accommodations or tourists. The village teacher, Lajos Bándy, had two grand-nieces, Rózsika and Bertuska. These two girls came from the Transylvanian mountains, and when domestic nature walkers discovered the Mátra following the Trianon border changes, the sisters rented a house in the settlement, opened a restaurant, and later provided lodging. When the road and bus services reached Upper Mátra, a new 24-room guesthouse was built. After World War II, this became the Vadvirág Tourist House, which was slowly ruined under the auspices of the Tourist Houses Managing Company, eventually collapsing in the 2000s.

We walk into the village center, where the alpine-style church built in 1980, with a radically different appearance from usual, merits mention. We turn left onto the Z mark, which follows the narrow main street. Restaurants and buffets offer opportunities to refresh, then at the soccer field we take a side path, bidding farewell to Mátraszentimre between the cemetery and the World War I memorial. From there, we follow the P marks, as we soon have to turn left to continue our hike through windblown beech woods.

Stone fields and beech woods

We bypass the rocky summit of Big-Átal Stone, where a ramshackle holiday cottage leans among the dense trees. After a steep descent, we cross the main road again and continue level on the P+ marks. A meadow wedges into the forest on the right, while a small guardhouse stands on the left. We head down along the wild, rocky skirt of Small-Átal Stone, walking along a gently sloping side covered by hair-beech forest. Mossy stone seas dot the ground—these varying-sized stone fields were once continuous rock surfaces, remnants of lava flows, fragmented by frost during cold periods of the ice age. Their mossy backs are a distinctive feature of the Mátra forests, reflecting changes in the forest associated with elevation loss. The dark, closed leaf beech forest gives way at warmer, south-facing, lower terrain to grass-covered oak forest. A beautiful section rich in deadwood begins here. Our disused cart road reveals a wilderness landscape, eventually narrowing to a path—as if walking in a secluded Upper Hungary mountain range. We cross the ridge of Shade Peak and, stepping across a leveling forestry road, a rough sign directs us to the S+ mark.

Passing through a pleasant pine forest, undulating among many small ditches, the white wall of the Szalajka House suddenly appears behind the trees. From here, we can return to the narrow-gauge railway station on the Z◼ marks to the right.