Gorce National Park

The Gorce are a block of the Western Beskids between the Dunajec and the Raba, rising to 1,310 metres at Turbacz, and they are covered almost entirely in fir and beech - which is what makes the polany, the grazed clearings, the point of walking here. The forest is continuous and viewless for long stretches and then a glade opens on a ridge and the whole Tatra chain stands across the Nowy Targ basin to the south, sometimes with the range floating over cloud in the valley. Those clearings are man-made, cut and grazed over centuries, and the park maintains some of them deliberately because their flora and the views both depend on it. Turbacz has a refuge and is the hub of the trail network. A forest reserve was first set up here in 1927 on the estate of Count Ludwik Wodzicki; the national park followed in 1981 and now covers about seventy square kilometres, nine-tenths of it forest. The range was the home country of Wladyslaw Orkan, whose writing about the Gorce villages is part of what put the mountains into Polish literature.

The landscape

• Continuous fir and beech - viewless forest for long stretches between clearings.
• Grazed glades - man-made openings that the park keeps cut for flora and views.
• The Tatras across the basin - the whole chain appearing suddenly from a ridge clearing.
• Turbacz refuge - the hub of the trail network at the range's high point.

When to go

May to October; autumn for clear air over the Tatras. A day or two.

Practical notes

Much of the walking is inside forest with no view - the clearings are the payoff. Trails are long and connections between them need planning. The Turbacz refuge is busy in summer. Winter walking here needs snowshoes.

Nearby

Nowy Targ and the Tatras are south; the Pieniny are south-east.

Key facts