Going by car would certainly have been more comfortable. In featherweight trainers rather than sturdy mountaineering boots. And in a clean T-shirt instead of the stinking rag I'd spent four days climbing, eating dinner and sleeping in. But we decided we'd had enough of pampering ourselves with the car. And that, as climbers, we ought to show nature not just a conqueror's attitude but a responsible one too – with minimal emissions. So this time the car stayed parked outside the house, and at 19:00 sharp we boarded a bus on Fügnerova Street in Liberec that took us to the platform of the Prague – Poprad night train. A single bottle of Chotěboř beer then helped us survive the night in a stuffy compartment where five passengers were jolted out of their shallow dreams several times a night, all at once, by the sleep apnoea of passenger number six.
The credit for our rapid awakening at a quarter to five in the morning goes to the icy wind sweeping along the platform, together with 150 ml of instant coffee for seventy cents from a vending machine. A tiny two-by-two-metre shop selling everything from postcards and fresh Fornetti pastries to cuddly marmots stays shut. The escalators are decorated with "Out of order" signs. And the way two locals are talking makes it obvious what their benefits were spent on. Through a small window with a shelf, ruled by a chipped porcelain saucer with a blue rim, comes the voice of a working pensioner, currently knitting a scarf. Am I going for a big one or a little one? "A big one." "Then 40 cents. A little one would be 30. Here's your paper. Next time you'll know." Tucked away behind the counter on the opposite side of the station hall, a lady stifles a yawn as she sells us two tram tickets to Smokovec for 3 euros. An hour of Poprad station was quite enough.
When the uniform voice of the Tatra Electric Railway announces Starý Smokovec over the loudspeakers, the sun is breaking through into a clear sky. We give the lower station of the Hrebienok funicular a wide berth on the right. We are climbers, after all, and not some spoilt lowlanders who ride up into the mountains by cable car, get in the way on the icy path without microspikes, never say hello and eat all the halušky in the huts, so there's nothing left for us mountain men who toil all day on the face and fight for our very lives. And besides, the first car doesn't run for another two and a half hours. So we walk. Alone, we climb up the start of Malá Studená dolina, and by just after eight we're forking up scrambled eggs at Zamkovského chata – a hospitable starting point for climbing trips into no fewer than three Tatra valleys. A cosy little wood-panelled room with a bunk bed, a bedside table, a shelf nailed to the wall and a few metal hooks screwed into the walls here and there. Among all the gems of climbing literature down in the restaurant, one book stands out in particular – Expedícia Vysoké Tatry 1955 (High Tatras Expedition 1955). In the evening, back from the heights, we read its chapters aloud, play climbing-themed memory and raise a glass of gentian spirit with the hut keepers. That's Zamka for you – pure bliss.
At the mouth of Malá Studená dolina, below the Lomnický hrebeň ridge, at an altitude of 1,475 m, a wooden hut was built in 1943. It had no official name, but the atmosphere created by Štefan Zamkovský and his wife Ľudmila with their warmth, and the reputation of Štefan Zamkovský – a top Tatra climber, excellent mountain guide and devoted rescuer – meant that nobody ever knew it as anything other than Zamkovský's hut.
How much snow can there be around the hut? Twenty centimetres? It's the end of January and apparently the last proper snowfall here was on 26 December. A strange winter. The path to Téryho chata has been polished smooth by the boots of hundreds of people, and when we leave Zamka in the dark by headtorch before six in the morning, our feet slip several times however careful we are. On the slope below Téryho chata we put on crampons. Without the sharp points of those climbing irons you can't take a step in the icy Tatras in January. Before we leave the relative safety of the path, busy the day before, we tuck into a slice of bread at sunrise so huuuge that the last time I saw one like it was with woodcutters. In a fairy tale. We'll be hacking away today too and, hopefully, it'll be a fairy tale – up the Jordán route all the way to Lomnický štít. Over breakfast we have the giant high above our heads.
Károly Jordán was a Hungarian climber, mathematician, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and professor at the College of Economics in Budapest. He was one of the leading Tatra climbers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and initiated many interesting first ascents, including some in winter conditions. Karol Jordán, accompanied by Ján Franz Sr., was the first to climb Lomnický štít from Sedielko pod Lomnickým on 6 July 1900.
We swap bread for ice axes. The gully leading up to the right of Pyšný štít is full of hard, frozen firn – like in spring – and while a slip on the path meant at worst a hard landing on your backside, up here that kind of hesitation is not forgiven. We can't match our own steps to the existing footprints, so we kick our crampon points into the untouched snow a little to the side. Those signs of recent human presence were made by someone heading down the gully, who naturally took much longer strides than we can going up. He even tried to throw us off a little. But we don't blindly follow his tracks dropping down from Pyšný štít; instead we climb over an indistinct rock rib into the next gully. There the snow is completely virgin.
As the icy slope steepens and we take our second axes in hand too, two more heroes emerge from behind a rocky spur, far braver than us. "Look, look at them! That's impossible." Like us, they move on all fours over the slippery terrain, but unlike us without the sharp points of axes and crampons. Madmen? No. True Tatra natives. Chamois.
We end the steady rhythm of swinging axes and kicking crampons in the notch by Posledná veža. The rock climbing begins. The hard, reliable south-facing firn gives way to frozen, loose, faceted snow that treacherously hides the key footholds. Beneath our feet the steep Medená kotlina opens its jaws and there's no room left in your head for any of those worries from down in the valley. Luckily the crampon points always catch on something – you just have to believe it – and in the end your hands find the support they crave, on bare rock or on an axe sunk rock-solid into overhanging Tatra grass. What a relief the iron chains securing some of the particularly nasty spots are. We leave the dark north side behind us shortly before eleven, and in Sedlo pod Lomnickým we strap the axes to our packs. We won't need them any more. Under a clear sky the rock is free of snow, and the summit handshake is at most a few dozen minutes of easy climbing away, with the occasional help of chains, staples and pegs hammered into the Lomnický massif by the Hungarian Carpathian Society. The last obstacle in our way is the railing at the viewing platform.
The summit of Lomnický štít was probably first reached from Medené lávky by Jakub Fábry, a shoemaker and amateur miner from Kežmarok, sometime between 1760 and 1790. Members of his family searched for treasure and dug for gold in these parts. The first recorded tourist ascent was made from Malá Studená dolina on 16 August 1793 by Robert Townson, an English physician, naturalist and traveller, during his journey through the lands of the Austrian monarchy.
"Good heavens, where have you come from?" "Oh, from Téryho chata – just popped up for a beer, you know." "Goodness! And isn't it dangerous?" "Dangerous? Don't know. Well, a bit, probably. But mostly it makes you thirsty," we say, using that line to squeeze past a group of friendly elderly ladies straight to the bar. "Wait! And how are you going to get down?" I wave my axe to the right towards the gully leading down to Skalnaté pleso: "Down that gully, via Emerich's Lament." "Good heavens! Then let's hope we won't hear your lament from up here." "Of course you won't – cheers!"
For two more days we find joy, excitement and often the limits of our own courage in the icefalls and snow gullies of both Malá and Veľká Studená dolina. On Tuesday afternoon, when the sky over the Tatras clouds over, we head down. Shortly before six in the evening we turn up at Poprad station again, and even at this hour the place seems no friendlier than when we arrived. Our train leaves at 22:40.
How do you kill five hours? The cinema! Every town has a multiplex these days. Even Poprad. We walk across the dead town square, slide down the slope below Lidl and dash across the dual carriageway separating the Juh II housing estate from Cinemax. After the first three scenes, the hundred and seven minutes of the film Příliš osobní známost (Intimate Acquaintance) turn out above all to be far too long. Still, the thought of a hundred and seven minutes on the cold metal benches of Poprad station keeps us in our padded seats; we'll survive the soppy romance on the screen more easily, and we'll skip rating the film so as not to disgrace the scale. We cross the four-lane road back to the Juh II estate. On the slope below Lidl we put our crampons on again, and at the station I give my last snack bar to a homeless man. In the completely empty hall, two men sit down next to my rucksack. I pull the rucksack closer. The men leave. I'd like to leave too. How much more Poprad? An hour and a quarter? Oh well, that'll fly by.
Lowe Alpine Halcyon 35:40 pack
Asolo Alta Via GV hiking boots
Bridgedale Hike Midweight socks
Rab Pivot GTX gloves
I climb mountains. I write about mountains. I photograph mountains. And I always come back happy. It's written in my name, after all.
