Day 6 - Morskie Oko and our wandering

Hi guys, apparently Guillaume liked my entry from yesterday so, I'm honoured to write about our hike to Morskie Oko.

Thankfully, today, the weather gods were kind to us and blessed us with a lovely sunny weather, perfect for a hike in the mountains. We took the shuttle bus from Zakopane main bus station to the Tatrzansky Park Narodowy ( I hope that's how you write it in Polish), which is situated at the foot of the mountain range where Morskie Oko is situated.

The hike up to the tarn is 7,6 km and we thought it would be a lovely forest hike up the mountain. Oh boy, we were wrong! It was asphalt/paved road with way too many people going both directions. So the first leg of the hike (7,6 km) were quite nightmare-ish.

People. People everywhere! Yes, those were initial words ringing in my head when we reached the bloody Morskie Oko, because, indeed, there were people everywhere. Just for comparison, to paint you a right picture, it was as busy as Notre Dame square, or Oxford Street. I suppose it is nation's favourite place to walk to. We actually had to queue for the stairs going down to the tarn itself.

Thankfully, we knew there was another smaller tarn slightly higher above the Morskie Oko with quite steep trail going up. So we thought there will be considerably less folks up there and we were right. But then when we hiked up the the second tarn, we saw something white just in between two mountains across from the trail entrance into the tarn, which we later found out called Ciarny Staw (again I hope I didn't butchered the original name of it).

I said to Guillaume that I think it's snow or glacier, but he disagreed, and here we were. On a mission. And exciting one.

Off we went to discover (for ourselves) what that white thing between the mountains was. The trail was easy enough  and quite beautiful. As we walked around the tarn, we were able to witness quite a spectacle. As we walked and sun's angle changed, the shade of water has changed with it. It went from white-ish clear to bright turquoise to deep blue and black-ish.

Hurray, it was a glacier! A tiny one, but it was the first one we both seen and been this close during the summer. It was truly spectacular and amazing that not even 10 metres lower people were walking in shorts and tee shirts and there by the glacier was quite close to a zero.

In the summary we walked about 27 km, and it was the longest hike we both did, and we very much looking forward to some home made curry I promised Guillaume, hit shower and BED!

Aliona.