Another Day in Paradise...

...the Slovak Paradise, that is. My brother and I came out to the Slovensky Raj last month, but Cindi hadn't been there yet, so we headed to Dedinky on the southern side of the park to do the Zejmarska Roklina (gorge), supposedly the shortest canyon climb in the park. I could tell that things were going to be different from Sucha Bela as soon as we turned into the gorge - there didn't appear to be any trail at all, just a rushing stream. At drier times,
you can walk up the stream bed, but a couple of days of rain had increased the stream flow and we had to pick our way along the edge of the stream, occasionally having to jump to the other side. After passing some small waterfalls, we found the first ladder

which led to a bridge reaching two-thirds of the way across the stream, which by this point was quite wide. We could see that the people ahead of us had had to come back across the stream farther up, so we just stayed on our side. This turned out to be a good idea, since the final bridge had apparently been completely destroyed. At this point we were at the base of a hundred-foot almost-vertical limestone cliff with a large waterfall

rushing down it. A series of ladders

led up next to the waterfall - the last ladder was almost in the stream itself,

and Cindi got quite wet from the spray. At the top of the cliff, the slope of the gorge got quite gentle, but we still had a couple of hundred meters of boulder hopping before we finally got onto dry land. Dry quickly turned into snow

since we were up over 1000m above sea level in mid-April in a thick forest. Shortly after we found the trail leading back down, it started to rain, so we had a wet and slippery descent back down to Dedinky. My GoreTex jacket and boots kept me pretty dry, but Cindi's feet were completely soaked. After changing into our dry clothes, we had a late lunch at a hotel in Dedinky, and then drove back around the western end of the park through some very scenic valleys. I'm going to bring my bike up here someday.

If you were thinking of doing anything in the National Park, stop thinking of it now - it's forbidden!


Near Spisska Nova Ves we drove through a torrential downpour, and now it's just settling into a steady drizzle - tomorrow may be an indoor day.