Peak 38 | Gerlachovský štít, Slovakia | 2654m

Ticking off the highest summit in the High Tatra mountain range I found myself having to 'bend' a few rules to keep on schedule.

Quick Summary

• Starting point - Vyšné Hágy Station

• Route taken - Via Batizovská próba

• Total ascent - 1550 m

• Total length - 18 km

• Total time - 9½ hours

• Expense category - #Modrate

• Equipment - #StandardHike

• Difficulty - #Level4 of 5

• Enjoyment - #5stars of 5*

Reaching the highest point of Slovakia

After Rysy the next on the list, that is located just a stones throw away is Slovakia's high point. Gerlachovský štít, or for short, Gerlach.

This is the only one the list of high points where a guide is required by law if you are not part of a mountaineering club. So we called into the local office for the 'Association of Mountain Guides' to try and book a place. Unfortunately they were fully booked for the rest of the week. This was going to cause nightmares for my schedule, so I started to heavily research the mountain and the routes to see if it was something within my capabilities to do without a guide.

For the most part I came to the conclusion that the standard route was nothing more challenging that I had been exposed to on previous climbs. It had a few sections of via ferrata and grade II climbing. But for the most part it is just a scramble.

So I decide to make an attempt at it. My friend who was originally planning to accompany me with a guide didn't feel that he had enough experience. So rightfully, he decided not to join me and instead I would make plans at going up solo.

I wanted to start from Vysny Hagyr instead of the standard Sliezky Dom refuge. It's a longer route with an additional 500m of ascent but I hoped to avoid as much contact as I could with curious guides and their parties that may ask too many questions.

After parking up near the Vysny Hagyr train station I set off on foot at 5:30am. The start of the trail wasn't that clear but I was able to locate it fairly quick with the use of the maps on my Garmin tracking device.

The only problem that I had is that I had done some damage to my knee coming down from Rysy a couple of days before and it still wasn't 100%. So to try and help I wore a compression knee brace for the climb and I decided that the best scenario was just to take my time as my pace was not effecting anyone else.

By 7:30am I had reached the Batizovske lake where I would merge onto the same path that the guides use. I was't expecting it, but it was completely quiet apart from one guy that had camped out next to the lake overnight.

I took the route around the back of the lake before making a further incline up into the valley. From this point, about 2100 m, it turns from a standard hiking trail to the climbing and scrambling stage. I checked the weather forecast one final time before moving up.

It didn't take long until I would bump into my first group of other climbers. They had come round a corner just as I reached the top of some via ferrata and we came face to face. To my surprise they just said 'hi' in Slovak and moved on without any questions.

Five minutes or so later I could see another group coming down. I debated whether to try hide or not as I don't think that they'd seen me. Just as I was about to head off trail to hide behind the back of a large rock I accidentally kicked a stone that tumbled down the valley making some loud echoing crashes as it went. Hiding was now off the table and I continued up.

Again as I passed these. They didn't say anything and neither did I.

In total there may have been 15 or more groups that walked straight past me without saying anything. The only question I got asked by one guy was 'where are you from?' I answered 'UK' before quickly continuing my climb.

As luck would have it I seemed to time my ascent to the summit perfectly. Just as the last group was putting their bags back on to head back down I arrived at the summit.