Dancing Forest

The Curonian Spit is a sand bar ninety-eight kilometres long between the Baltic and a lagoon, shared with Lithuania and listed by UNESCO, and much of its pine cover was planted through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to stop the dunes burying villages. In one small stand near Rybachy, planted around 1961, the trees grew wrong: trunks that loop into full circles, spiral, corkscrew and bend flat to the ground before rising again. Explanations offered include damage by a moth caterpillar attacking the leading shoot in the early years, wind and unstable sand, and soil conditions - the caterpillar hypothesis is the one most foresters favour, and no explanation is settled. The stand is small, a few dozen trees, and it was being killed by people climbing through and compacting the roots, so it is now fenced with a boardwalk around the outside and touching the trees is prohibited.

History

The pines were planted on the Curonian Spit in the 1960s, and the exact cause of their twisted rings, hearts and spirals is still unknown (Wikipedia, Dancing Forest).

What you'll find

• The looped trunks - pines that spiral, corkscrew and bend to the ground.
• The 1961 planting - a stand put in as part of the spit's dune stabilisation.
• The explanations - caterpillar damage, wind and soil, none of them settled.
• The boardwalk - a fenced route added after visitors damaged the roots.

When to go

May to September. One hour, combined with Dune Efa and the spit's other stops. Summer weekends are busy with coach groups.

Practical notes

The stand is small - a few dozen trees seen from a boardwalk in twenty minutes. Fenced, with no access among the trunks, which disappoints people who saw older photographs. Very crowded in summer. The national park fee applies to the whole spit road.

Nearby

Dune Efa and the Fringilla bird station are along the same road; Rybachy is close.

Key facts