We arrived at Korbielów in the early evening. The air was different, fresh and cool as we were in the mountain area, rather far from cities and their smog.
Our place ( Przy Szlaku ) was located on main road with street lights which was a bit worrying. Fortunately, there was little traffic comparing to the place where we live now.
This was hot day and we were relieved we got to our destination and were able to rest for a while. The guesthouse was a bit old, in communist-era style. Curtains were as thin as a rake (sun shone right into our eyes in the morning). But the beds were quite comfortable. There was shared toilet and a tiny tiny kitchen. At the back of house there was large porch with the biggest wooden benches we have ever seen 😉 The guesthouse owner allowed to use barbecue grills for free. Generally, it was perfect place for big party !
After arrival we decided to take our time and go for a walk.
We packed our rucksacks with necessities such as head lights and non-alcoholic beers and went to the nearest hill.
At the beginning the route was overgrown by plants and seemed to have not been used by anyone for a long time. Fortunately, we have always some tick spray for protection . The tick bite is one of the things we are most afraid of in the forest... Those nasty creatures like hot days and deserted paths (where animals are common to come across).
Later on (already after the sunset) we made it to the wider path. I spot a clearing - beautiful field of mown grass, perfect to lay down and stare into the sky. We decided to get some rest there.
Absolute silence was making us feeling weird as we rarely experience it in our everyday city life
. Then we spotted firefly. And right after this one we saw another one. After a while fireflies were all around us flying like tiny sparks. Amazing view. We hadn't seen them for ages! We were sitting on our nice green blanket, under the beautiful starry sky, surrounded by fireflies and it felt brilliant!
Whoever said that some moments make our lives worth living was perfectly right
After some time we've spotted lightning on the horizon. Midly speaking, we both are not very fond of storms in the mountains so we gathered our things and countinued our night-time walk. We moved along the wider track making a circle around Korbielów. Along the way we were stopping for several times and looking up for marvellous stars and lightnings which brightened the sky.
Quite soon after leaving the forest, when we were already on asphalt road we spotted few deer-like animals but we weren't sure if those were deers as they were huge! When we got to our place it was around midnight.
We were so tired that we fell asleep quickly and slept deeply until the sun woke us up (I'd say the curtains were non-existent which is half true).
Next day we decided to go across the Slovak border to get to Pilsko mountain.
It's not very demanding hike - the peak reaches 1557 metres.
At the beginning we were walking on asphalt road through the forest and several bikers passed us by. We immediately started to regret that we hadn't taken our wheels. But soon we forgot about that as we started to climb and beautiful views were showing up.
The day was hot and the air was quite dry as there was eventually no storm in our area. The hut was very nice and clean (probably because it was used by skiers during the winter). I think it was the most modern shelter of all which I have seen so far in Poland.
We rested for a while under the sun umbrellas and admired great views. Then, we started 30 minutes walk on black path to Pilsko summit.
After 15 minutes we spotted something worrying - down in the valley under Żywiec city clouds had build up tall and dark formation. In next few minutes lightnings began to flash. After reaching the summit we took some pictures and headed back to the shelter for safety.
Surprisingly, we passed by lots of people that were going up, oblivious to the fact that storm was coming.
We returned to the shelter and waited for weather to change. Accidentally, we met there Joanna's work colleagues who happened to have the same plans for weekend as we did 🙂 We chatted and had dinner together.
When it stopped raining and the black clouds went away we split up and our friends started to climb the peak. We went back to our guesthouse.
This evening our old friend with his family joined us. We had barbecue in the evening. Then, full with food and joy we went to sleep. Next day we decided to "attack" Rysianka mountain.
The word 'attack' is quite funny in this context - the summit reaches only 1322 metres. When we arrived at the point where the trail starts we thought that there would be crowds on track as there were loads of cars parked.
After few moments we realized that all those cars belong to church goers who attended mass in the nearby church. In this region people are very religious and attached to their traditions. All the churches are full of people every Sunday.
The day was very peaceful - sun was shining, air was nice and fresh and we were all in very good moods. We decided to take a short cut which turned out to be very steep slope. But everyone managed to climb it (including pregnant fiancée of our best mate).
When we got to Rysianka shelter we decided to rest for a while and enjoy lovely view of Beskid Żywiecki .
In fact, all the views were so georgeous that I wanted to stay there until next week (or at least until evening).
Later, I got myself convinced to go for a walk in the direction of Złatna . We reached our destination and went back to Rysianka hostel. I was very hungry so I ordered dinner.
At this point we split up with our friends as they needed to return home sooner. After a meal, we laid back on a meadow and enjoyed beautiful view of Beskid Żywiecki. We were in absolutely no hurry - taking our time we contemplated the view of the valley.
Eventually we got up and started to climb down bearing in mind that this was Sunday and next day we needed to show up in the office in the morning.
When we were at the bottom of the mountains, down in the valley we allowed ourselves a very refreshing foot bath - straight in extremely cold mountain stream . What a pleasure, what a relief! One of the best things can happen to you after a hot day spent in trekking boots.
We got back to the car at the very right time - it just started raining and looked like the storm was coming again...
