Barania Gora

Barania Gora is 1,220 metres in the Silesian Beskids and its significance is hydrological: the Vistula rises here, in two headwater streams - the Czarna Wisełka and the Biala Wisełka, the black and the white - that come off the slopes and join below the mountain, and the river they make runs about a thousand kilometres north through Krakow, Warsaw and Torun to the Baltic at Gdansk, which is most of Polish history in one line. The spring on the eastern flank is marked and is a small pilgrimage of its own. The summit carries a lookout tower giving the Beskids in every direction and, on a clear day, the Tatras to the south-east. The forest below is spruce, much of it planted as monoculture in the nineteenth century and damaged by bark beetle and windthrow since, which is visible on the slopes and is an argument about forestry as much as a view.

What you actually see

• The Vistula's source - two headwater streams, the black and the white, off these slopes.
• A summit tower - the Beskids in all directions and the Tatras on a clear day.
• A marked spring - the source point, visited as a small pilgrimage.
• Damaged spruce - nineteenth-century monoculture hit by beetle and windthrow.

When to go

May to October. A day.

Honest expectations

The ascent is a steady three hours from Wisla with no drama - the interest is the source and the view. The tower queues at weekends. Large areas of dead and felled spruce are visible on the slopes. Winter needs proper equipment.

Nearby

Wisla is below; the Beskids ridge runs east towards Zywiec.