ZAKOPANE

My first weekend in Poland, I went skiing in Zakopane (Zock-Oh-Pon-Nyuh) with Hubert (Who-Bert), one of the guys from work. On Saturday, we went to this flea market that sold only new and used ski equipment. I bought some pants, gloves, and a pair of boots, but decided to rent skis. That afternoon, we drove two hours to the Tatra Mountains at the southern border of Poland. The first day, we went up a small single-slope trail. For $1.50 a ride, a cable car on train tracks pulled us up to the top. I found this to be one of the more annoying things about skiing in Poland. We had to wait in each line to buy tickets and pay for everything separately. We had to pay the parking lot attendant, the bus driver, and each of the lift operators every time we got on a lift. We went down six times that afternoon, and I finally got warmed up and built up some confidence. That day, I was thinking that this was all that Poland had to offer for skiing and was feeling a little disappointed. Tomorrow would change my mind! Saturday night, we went into the town, and I learned that every resort town in the world must look the same. Just like the towns I've visited in cities from Santa Rosa, CA to Salt Lake City, UT to Boston, MA to Virginia Beach, VA to Grand Cayman to Cozumel, Mexico, this town had a narrow street filled with tourist shops, restaurants, and bars. We spent the night at this hotel where we each got a tiny little room with a bed, a TV, and tiny bathroom for $15, breakfast included! It certainly wasn't luxurious, but it served its purpose of giving us a clean, comfortable place to stay between skiing.

Here's the cable car:

Homes along the trail on this first day:

The next day, we went to the big mountain. We waited in line for an hour and a half to cram nearly 50 people into a gondola car made for 20 that carried us from one mountain top to the next. This may have been one of the scariest parts of the day. I'm sure it was a half-mile from one support pole to the next. Once at the top, we had to transfer to another gondola that took us through the clouds to the top of the mountain! The views at the top were spectacular, but I couldn't have been more scared. From my limited experience, I'd say that the conditions were great. It snowed both days and overnight while we were there. I could easily press my ski pole 3 feet into the snow. The only reason that I decided to go ahead and ski down was because on the downhill side of the slope, they had a plastic construction-type fence that should catch me if I started to fall off the mountain. This fence turned out to be the Slavokian border, and was patrolled by Polish border guards! A little ways down that narrow trail, we hit the clouds. There's no way we could see more than 20 feet down in front of us. I think at the point that was a good thing. I may not of skied down if I had seen what was ahead of me. The good part about skiing here was that the trail was as wide as the side of the mountain. It was wonderful. There were no narrow trails or cliffs to fall from, just wide open space. Hubert and I skied and fell, and skied and fell, and had a great time. I was surprised that many of the other people there weren't great skiers either. I thought living so close to the mountains, that all Poles must be experts, but there were many of us falling down a lot. Also, contrary to my experience in Utah, none of the good skiers seemed to get mad at those of us falling down in their way and skiing slowly all the way back and forth across the mountain. I guess the trails were wide enough that they could just ski around us. This was such a great experience, it completely changes my understanding of some people's passion for skiing.

This is the first gondola:

Here are the Slovakian border and the border gaurds:

The little black specs are skiers:

Here's the chair lift at the top going up into the clouds: