Return to Paradise

As a young journalist, Paul Glendell visited Slovenský raj National Park just after the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia. Two decades later he returned to see if the ‘Slovak Paradise’ he fell in love with had survived the political upheaval…

Twenty years ago I took a walk in paradise, so I thought it was time to go back and see if it had changed. Would the cascading waterfalls still be
there? Would the thick green forests have been cut down? Could I still walk through the deep valleys and canyons, echoing with the sound of birdsong and flowing streams? I needed to know that Slovensky´ raj – or ‘Slovak Paradise’ – hadn’t been lost.

It was shortly after Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution in 1989 – the peaceful overturning of the Soviet government that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall – when my girlfriend and I visited the country. We were there as freelance journalists to document the state of the environment, having heard reports of widespread pollution under the former communist regime. While travelling around and interviewing people, I was offered the chance to visit Slovensky´ raj, which had recently been designated a national park. So, with my two newly found friends, Roman and Dasa – university students from Prague – I took the night train across the country. We travelled ‘student class’ on the overcrowded carriage, taking it in turns to sit down and get some rest. The next morning, having not slept a wink, we set off on a walk that continued over 23km/14 miles into the park.

Along the way, Roman and Dasa talked about their hopes for the future after the collapse of communism, and their worries about the changes ahead. What would become of this and the country’s other national parks? Would they continue to be protected, or would the forests be logged when the land was returned to private ownership? That night we stayed in a wooden hut on a campsite at Podlesok, in the north of the park – and to my surprise it was still there two decades later. The campsite itself, though, had expanded hugely with new restaurants and souvenir kiosks. Visitor numbers to Slovensky´ raj have risen by over a third since communism, when its 600,000 annual visitors were mostly made up of students and wilderness enthusiasts – sometimes camping illegally inside the park. Now, having split from the Czech Republic in 1992, Slovakia’s population is wealthier than ever before, and more and more people choose to go hiking here in their leisure time.

Canyons and waterfalls
One of nine national parks in Slovakia, Slovensky´ raj is smaller and less dramatic than the better known High Tatras, whose peaks reach over 3,000m/10,000ft compared with Slovensky´ raj’s 1,000m/3,000ft hills. But the beautiful central mountain range it protects is home to over 370km/230 miles of hiking trails among spectacular forested canyons, waterfalls and caves. For the first walk on my return to the park, I decided to re-trace a trip Roman, the others and I had done along the Hornád river, which runs east of the Podlesok campsite.

The blue markers and direction signs made it easy to find again. But this was not easy walking: the interpretation boards at the park’s entrances (now in English as well as Slovak) warn you to be prepared with proper walking boots, and I would add a reasonable degree of fitness as well. The muddy path was initially criss-crossed by tree roots, with wooden ladders and iron walkways later on involving the occasional scramble, making it a difficult walk by British standards. Yet this was nothing compared with what was to come. Around the steepest parts of some limestone cliffs, the path became a series
of metal-runged plates with a chain handrail suspended 15m/50ft above the river below. While being cautious, it felt reasonably stable; my memory from 20 years ago was that it was capable of collapsing at any moment. Most of the walkways in the park now appear to have been replaced, but they do sometimes still wobble in their fixings bolted into the rock-face.

After around 4km/21⁄2 miles, I turned off the blue-marked trail to explore the deep valley of Klastorska Roklina. Following the green markers this time, the route passed through a steep gorge whose walls eventually narrowed to within a few metres either side of me. Metal ladders took me up waterfalls that would be impossible to pass without climbing equipment – I counted 50 rungs on one ladder, spaced a foot-or-so apart. Like several gorges in the park, this was a one-way route which only permitted you to walk upwards. Despite the modest altitude, the effects of heat inversion in these deep limestone ravines results in a habitat more akin to high mountains, with mosses, lichen and butterflies more common in alpine environments all found here. It’s one of the main reasons the park was first designated, and the 11 national nature reserves and eight nature reserves within it are usually off-limits to the public, with frequent reminders for walkers to stay on the marked paths.

At the top of the Klastorska Roklina gorge, the forest gave way to a big meadow and a mountain café. It had been rebuilt since my last visit, and was much improved, along with the food and the service (never a communist strong point). Taking first the red route back to the Hornád river, I then continued along the blue trail to eventually ascend the side of the valley up to Tomasovsky Vyhlad – a 680m/2,200ft-high shelf of rock that makes for a magnificent viewpoint. The sheer cliff drops almost 200m/650ft to the river below, with forest spreading out all before you. It was just as I had remembered it. While Slovakia has – like its Eastern European neighbours – been exporting a lot more timber in recent years, the wholesale logging of huge areas that Roman and Dasa feared has thankfully not happened. As if to confirm the forest’s rude health, on the 8km/5-mile walk back to the campsite I disturbed red deer, saw two lesser spotted eagles searching for a roosting site in the fading light, and watched a black woodpecker digging in a tree for insects.

Free-roaming wildlife
While many conservation laws were at times flouted during Czechoslovakia’s communist rule (usually by high-ranking government officials), the state-owned national parks provided a stability that has kept Slovak wildlife relatively safe. In fact, under communism, brown bears were brought back from near extinction, with numbers as low as just 30 in the 1920s; the current bear population stands around 700 (the Slovak Wildlife Society runs bear-watching trips in English – see www.slovakwildlife.org). With more than 20% of Slovakia under some form of protection, large carnivores like the bear, wolf and lynx still roam wild, and there’s a degree of natural balance that disappeared long ago in the UK. However, in the nearby Low Tatras NP I watched as mechanical diggers ripped away at the supposedly protected hillside, constructing a new ski slope. Two other new ski runs were recently built in the High Tatras NP – in one case right through a colony of protected marmots. It seems remarkably short-sighted. Many of Slovakia’s – and indeed Europe’s – ski slopes will soon become redundant due to global warming, so what is the point of building more? It’s a situation Bedrich Hajek, the director of Slovensky´ raj, is keen to avoid, having spent 30 years working to protect the park.

“I have seen what has happened in the High Tatras and will not let that happen here,” he said. “Our biggest problem is tourism numbers and their physical effect on the park. Over the years we have even closed trails to help conserve wildlife – particularly the bears. We don’t plan to build any more.” Roman and Dasa would be delighted to hear the park is in such safe hands. The last time I heard from my two friends, Roman was an ecologist working for a Czech national park, and Dasa was a top official in the Czech Ministry of Environment. As for me, I eventually married a Slovak and regularly visit this beautiful country with our two children. I hope they too will be able to return to a Slovak Paradise that has remained wild and untamed for another 20 years.

Time/Distance: Allow around 9 hours to do the 18km/11-mile circular walk described above. Paths are colour-marked. Direction signs indicate time rather than distance, and assume you walk briskly without stopping. Entrance to the park costs €1.50 per day. Good walking maps are available from local shops.
Travel to: Several low-cost airlines fly to Slovakia. Alternatively, a train from London to Bratislava, via Brussels, Köln and Vienna, takes just under 24 hours and costs around £200 per person. For more info, visit www.seat61.com
Travel around: To get to Slovenský raj, take a train to Poprad, then a train to Vydrnik – the park is a 5km/3-mile walk.
Further info: www.slovensky-raj.sk or www.limba.com for accommodation.