Day three and once again, snow putting our original plans to rest, however we still had an achievable aim, finding a peak >2000m which wasn’t covered in snow. So we turned our attention to Dolina Gąsienicowa, specifically Kościelec (‘Caterpillar valley’ and ‘the church’)…
10 years ago, during my first trip to the Tatras I walked up and along Karb, a nice ridgeline easily accessible if you’re coming down from the cable car at Kasprowy Wierch (exactly what I’d done that first time). I remember looking up at the large peak looming over Karb and then later on, looking at the map to see it’s Kościelec. Seeing it, and looking at the zig zagging trail up it’s face engrained it as a ‘one day in the future’ peak, so this trip, as we looked up at the peaks all around the valley, seeing it mostly free of snow made it the obvious choice. As that was our last night in Zakopane (before heading up to the hostels for the next couple of nights), it meant we had a fairly long walk to get there. The first few hours were heading up past Nosal and through Dolina Gąsienicowa, around 700m of ascent, which served as a pretty good morning warm up! There are two trails heading up to Murowaniec (the hostel), the blue and the yellow. I’d come down the blue before, and knew it had great views looking back towards Zakopane and out to the north. I’d never taken the yellow route, but it snakes along the valley floor, so we decided to stick to the blue and get the views (at the cost of the bulk of the ascent being at the beginning of the walk).
A bit beyond where the above photo was taken the trail flattens out and you enter what is without a doubt one of the best looking places in the Tatras, Dolina Gąsienicowa. Being mid morning in summer, we unfortunately weren’t treated to dramatic sunrise lighting, but the views were still stunning and we had a great view of the path ahead all the way to the top of Kościelec. This gave us a good boost of motivation for the legs, which was doubled by the sight of some darker clouds appearing, an early sign of the rain that was forecast to arrive shortly after lunch.
Late morning we were then at PTTK Murowaniec, which was not only our first stop, but also our place for the night, so we stopped by reception briefly, grabbed something to drink and then headed back onto the blue trail to take us up to Czarny Staw Gąsienicowy where we could pick up the black trail to the top. The blue trail takes you up a further ~140m of ascent to Czarny Staw Gąsienicowy, which is quite a pleasant walk, and gets you pretty up close with the ridgeline along the Polish-Slovakian border, which at this point is the infamous Orla Perć trail. Originally, this was where we were headed, but with the reputation of this trail and the snowy conditions, Kościelec was a much better plan.
Now on the black trail the harder steps began, from here it’s up, up and up. In less than a kilometer (horizontally) you’re up on the ridge of Karb (250m of ascent), which that alone is a fantastic path to walk. It’s relatively narrow, but good underfoot, so easy going, but provides amazing views and a real feeling of being up among the peaks with the views of the lakes below. Then after a bit of steady going along the ridge, the trail then leaves Karb and starts its way up Kościelec.
The bulk of this trail is easy underfoot, but pretty much one long staircase with a few exceptions (as seen in the video at the top). There are a couple of slabs to traverse, which if dry are nice and easy (more on if they’re not later), and a few points (particularly the top) which move more into a short scramble as you’ll need your hands. It is a fairly exposed route in a few spots, so if that’s not your thing you may want to think hard, and if a small downclimb is off-putting, bare in mind that this is not a circular route and you will have to downclimb a few spots on the way back. But once you’re at the top you’re rewarded with a full 360 view of most of the Polish Tatras. From here we could see just how wintery the Orla Perć was still, so we had a quick sandwich, then began our descent knowing that the rain was forecast (and looking increasingly imminent, as seen in the photo below). This is quite a popular route (and rightly so, I’d highly recommend it), and so much of the trail is well polished, which does help find it on the way back down, but with rain inbound, we thought it better to get past the downclimbs and slabs before it arrived. Which fortunately we managed, and only had to get down the lower half with some light rain (which already made the polished stones fairly slippy).
Then not too long later we were back at Murowaniec enjoying bigos, schabowy and a few piwos. This is by far one of the best hostels I’ve ever seen, and in general Polish hostels seem leagues above anywhere else, with good food, clean facilities and with Murowaniec we were able to have a room for just the three of us. We certainly spent some time over a beer discussing all the possible routes and ideas if we were to go back and stay a few nights there, but for this trip it was one night only, and the next day we were to head out to another hostel. But there’s always another time!
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Filmed with an Insta360 X3 https://amzn.to/3P3GLpy
Still camera setup Fuji XT5 https://amzn.to/42uMMP1
16-55 f2.8 lens https://amzn.to/3oZTpuT
Peak design capture clip https://amzn.to/3WZq7cz
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