These articles were published in the Spectacular Slovakia travel guide, published annually by The Slovak Spectator since 1996. The latest editions can be obtained from our online shop.

The High Tatras: The joy of hiking in Slovakia

By Stephanie MacLellan

A few pages are not nearly enough to do justice to the Vysoké Tatry (High Tatras) and Slovenský raj (Slovak Paradise), two of Slovakia's most popular destinations. You could probably fill a book talking about the scenery, history and fantastic hiking.

If you want detailed information about the parks, there are many guidebooks and websites out there and I'd encourage you to find them. But what I can do in these few pages is shed some light on what a day in the parks is like for a casual but enthusiastic hiker.

The High Tatras

	The High Tatra range is small in area, but it still boasts some towering alpine peaks.
	Photo Stephanie MacLellan

There are several places you can start a hike into these mountains. The best base city is Poprad, from which you can take a new electric train to smaller resort villages further into the mountains. Among them are Štrbské Pleso, Tatranská Lomnica and Starý Smokovec.

My hike started from Starý Smokovec, which is about 15 minutes by train from Poprad. You can pick up trail maps from the town's information centre and get tips from the staff.

"Which one is your favourite?" I asked the staffer on duty when I was there, an outgoing, grandmotherly woman named Števka.

She shrugged and said something that sounds trite but is probably the most accurate answer:

"Everything is nice."

The higher trails are only open from June 15 to Oct. 31, so if you're going outside of those dates, check to see where you're allowed to go. You should also purchase mountain rescue insurance for each day you use the trails. The Sk20 daily fee covers you for mountain rescues during run-of-the-mill hiking activities, and there's a higher fee for "extreme" recreation. In Starý Smokovec, you can buy it at the tourism centre or the cable car that takes you up to Hrebienok, which departs from behind the Grand Hotel.

Hrebienok (1,285 metres) is a logical place to start your hike from Starý Smokovec. You can head up on the aforementioned gondola, but walking there only takes about 45 minutes and it's not too strenuous.

From there, my destination was Téryho chata (chalet or cottage), at an altitude of 2,015 metres. The maps say you can reach it in about three hours from Hrebienok by following the green trail, but unless you're a single-minded hiker it will actually take longer because, as Števka pointed out, "You'll want to sit and look around."

And there is much to look at. For starters, the trail takes you past the Studenovodské waterfalls, where the Hornád river gushes over and between rocky outcroppings.

	The Studený potok waterfall is one of the scenic spots you pass on your way through the High Tatras.
	Photo Ján Lacika

I had just taken out my camera at the waterfall when about four dozen pensioners poured into the area (including one woman teetering across the rocks on a pair of white high-heeled sandals). Right behind them was a group of another two dozen school kids.

But luckily for me, after that scenic pit-stop, I found myself basically alone most of the way up the mountain. In the third week of May, I was probably early enough in the season that I avoided the worst of the congestion.

From the waterfalls, it's an uphill but steady hike for the next hour, passing other mountain chaty like the Rainerova and Zamkovského. The latter has Tibetan prayer flags blowing in the breeze outside the traditional alpine wood building.

If you're there when there's a lot of snow on the ground, that might be your biggest challenge. While the novelty of trudging through the cold white stuff while you're wearing shorts and a T-shirt is fun at first, it wears off when it makes the climbing a slippery, arduous battle.

But the challenge is what makes it rewarding when you finally get to the peak where the Teryho chata stands. That and the dramatic up-close view of the highest peaks in Slovakia.

Not far from the chata are some of the renowned glacial lakes of the High Tatras. From Téryho, you see streams from the lakes flowing from the mountains through the melting snow, and joining up with the Veľký Studený river. The river carries a glacial blue tinge all the way into the valley. (I'm not sure if you're supposed to drink from it, but I tried anyway once I got closer to the top. It was cold and delicious.)

On my way back down the hill, I followed the river past the waterfalls all the way to the town of Tatranská Lesná, a couple of kilometres east of Starý Smokovec. It's the area past the waterfalls where you can really see the effects of the 2004 wind storm that tore through the High Tatras, knocking down a quarter of its forests. The yellow trail takes you through what still looks like a disaster area. Heaps of uprooted trees are piled up on either side of the riverbank, looking like someone dropped them from mid-air and forgot to pick them up.

Scenes like this are currently at the middle of a battle further west in the Tatras. The government wants to harvest fallen timber from the Tichá and Kôprová dolina (valleys). Environmentalists and national parks employees are protesting the move, calling on the government to leave the timber where it is to help the forests regenerate. After a heated late-April protest that drew more than 1,000 people, the timber extraction was halted pending a legal challenge. Slovak and international environmentalist groups are watching the situation closely.

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