Description

If you have a perfect weather and enough stamina to push through 25 km of route and 1600 m of ascent this is a perfect choice for a full day Tatra excursion.

Starting in Kuźnice, next to the bottom cable car station you ascend through the Tatra forest and across the Kopas ridge reaching the Gąsienicowa high mountain vast meadow and valley, where you can visit the Murowaniec mountain hut.

From there you ascend mildly to the Black Gąsienicowy Pond with a wonderful vista of the main Polish High Tatras ridge.

You walk around the big pond and start ascending more steeply to a smaller 'Frozen' Pond and further up, towards the Zawrat Pass on a section that gets ever steeper and ends in a 45-1h long secured section that requires surefootedness and some rock scrambling.

The Zawrat PAss is iconic and opens routes on Orla Perć secured trail, however this trek descends into the 5 Polish Lakes valley, where you can marvel at the high mountains in the calm surroundings and visit the mountain hut located there.

From the mountain hut you climb again up to Świstowa Pass on easy but rocky and steep steps.

The boulder fields near the top of the ridge are easily passed and then you descend steeply to the Morskie Oko lake and the final hut of the trek.

From there you take the asphalt Oskar Balzer road down to Mickiewicz cascade and further down to Palenica Białczańska parking lot, where you can take public transportation back to Zakopane.