Sarnia Skała: The Sarnia Skała route is a nice, relatively short hike and we highly recommend it for anybody visiting Zakopane. If you are here for a few days on a hiking holiday, this is a good route to see some beautiful views of Zakopane and the surrounding area. You can start the hike from the Strazyska Valley or from the White Valley.
How to get there
Make your way to the ski jump area north of the town centre and head towards the lift area. You will see a road that leads off to the right under the forest, this is Droga Pod Reglami,where the hike really begins. The route starts fairly flat with beautiful views from Droga Pod Reglami. At the entrance to the Strazyska Valley, there is a small hut which is the entrance to the Tatra National Park; here you have to pay 5zl. From the entrance of the valley the route is very well marked and really easy. Once you reach the end of the valley around 30 min along, there is another small hut that sells hot drinks and regional food. From here you can continue straight again to the waterfall 15 min on, there isn’t a through path so you’ll have to turn around again and walk back to take the route up to Sarnia Skała. This part of the trail is more challenging and consists of about 20 min of climbing uphill. The route is laid out very well and also has steps at points to help the ascent. When you reach an opening in the forest you will see the markers to the view point on the left hand side, follow this to Sarnia Skała for some truly amazing views of the whole town and most of the Tarta range behind you. Walk back down the same way and choose the path that leads down the other side from which you ascended.
The route from there then leads around the hill and you can choose to go back through Dolina Białego (white valley) or on toward Kalatowki, a mountain hotel, and then downhill from there all the way to Kuznice and back into town. If you choose to go to Kalatowki you can have something to eat and drink there with nice views or you can walk back down into town first and stop at the resturant at the roundabout called Gospoda Kolibecka, they serve big soup portions and hearty highlander meals and is a good place to relax after your hike.
Useful Information
- The entire trip is about 8 miles and takes about 4 hours.
- If you are going for a romantic sunset, pack your backpack with warm clothes, scarfes and gloves.
- You can walk this route in the winter but we would recommend crampons for some of the difficult steeper areas.