Hi everyone,

I'm looking at organising a Hut 2 Hut hiking trip to the Tatra's for our club. I am trying to find detailed route information (ideally including a map) for a route up to the highest summit Gerlachovský Stit. This would be following the "normal/common" basic grade 1 route to the summit from Sliezcky Dom hutte and down the other side past Lake Batizovské Pleso.
We are all UIAA members and want to do this ourselves rather that have to hire an expensive guide for a group that could be up to 8-10 of us?

Also, does anyone have any information on walking from Rysy north along the ridge that is the border between Slovakia and Poland up towards Kasprowy Wierch as this also seems to be not very well documented anywhere? I believe that from Swinica to Kasprowy is straight forward but the rest is a bit more uncertain?

cheers
Andy

andymoss wrote:I'm looking at organising a Hut 2 Hut hiking trip to the Tatra's for our club. I am trying to find detailed route information (ideally including a map) for a route up to the highest summit Gerlachovský Stit. This would be following the "normal/common" basic grade 1 route to the summit from Sliezcky Dom hutte and down the other side past Lake Batizovské Pleso.
We are all UIAA members and want to do this ourselves rather that have to hire an expensive guide for a group that could be up to 8-10 of us?

First of all, there are no hiking trails to Gerlachovský štit, it takes a bit of climbing. Secondly, there is quite a bit of red tape in the Slovakian Tatras. See the Park Rules for details. I should add that I've read this several times when I wanted to climb Gerlachovský štit myself, and still didn't quite understand what this all meant. Only much later did I learn that during the summer season it is not permitted to climb the route you mention without a guide because it's only grade I-II. I just read the rules again, and I still find that the rules as written in English are hard to comprehend. Apparently the Slovak version is better but I can't read that. By the way, according to the rules a guide may have up to 5 guests in the park. Whether guides actually take that many climbers up to Gerlachovský štit, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lower limit.

Anyway, at the time I didn't understand the rules properly and so I climbed Gerlachovský štit by the Velický žl'ab, which is the normal route from Sliezsky dom (though I actually started in Nový Smokovec). I wrote a trip report as well as a route description, both of which you may find useful. I've you've got the time to read both, I suggest starting with the trip report.

If I had understood the rules, I wouldn't have climbed the Velický žl'ab at the time. I might have come back later with a climbing friend (and climbing gear) to climb a harder route, which is within the rules, or even come back in winter. Frankly, I liked the Tatras so much, I might come back in winter someday anyway!


Climbers shortly below the summit of Gerlachovský štit

Great information thanks RGG and teriffic trip report/route description and photos

Any idea which route the 'Common' route takes up and down?

So basically you can't do grades I or II in summer as they want to force people to have to use local guides?

Thanks

andymoss wrote:Any idea which route the 'Common' route takes up and down?

Normally the guides go up Velicky, down Batizovsky.

andymoss wrote:So basically you can't do grades I or II in summer as they want to force people to have to use local guides?

You're not allowed to climb a grade I or II route without a guide outside the winter season, but you're allowed to descend it after an ascent by a harder route. I haven't read anywhere that the guide must be local. I assume that any certified mountain guide may take clients into the Tatras, but if you want to be sure about this you'll have to ask Tanap. And, by the way, I also assume that guides from outside the EU (and not from closely associated countries such as Switzerland, Iceland and Norway) need a work visa or work permit or something similar to do any guiding in Slovakia.

Cheers, Rob