Karkonosze National Park is a protected area of 55.76 km², located in the south-west of Poland in the Karkonosze Mountains – in the highest part of the Sudetenland with the summit of Snezhka (1603 m). The park was founded in 1959, and in 1992 it, together with the adjacent Czech park of the same name, was declared a single biosphere reserve.
On the territory of the park there are high-mountain lakes, waterfalls, rock formations of picturesque forms. The slopes of the mountains are covered with deciduous and coniferous forests, in which there are many birds and mammals, in particular the mouflon, once brought from Corsica.
Karkonosze National Park Opening hours
The park is open all year round, except august 10 and the period from November 16 to December 15. You can buy tickets in 4 points, 3 of them in Karpacz, where I lived, and one in Jelenia Góra.
The main warning is that you need to leave the park before dark, because it is not safe to walk in the dark on the mountains.
The ticket price for an adult is 6 zlotys, children from 7 to 16 years old and pensioners the ticket will cost 3 zlotys. Children under 7 years old visit the park free of charge.
Infrastructure
Very scarce, after all, it is a national park, and here you will not find a cafe every 500 meters. There are several cafes at the entrance to the park (I mean the entrance, which is located in Karpacz near the lift on the Kopa). Another small café and a paid toilet (3 zlotys) are on the Kop at the Dom Śląski transit point, but they are already at an altitude of about 1300 m, and before that for about two hours you will have to climb without the benefits of civilization.
Well, at the very top (Snowball) there is where to have a snack. But there are a huge number of people from the Polish and Czech sides of the mountain range, it is very windy and cold, and I personally did not want to stay there for a long time.
Ascent to Mount Sněžka
To be honest, it was hard. We climbed the black route, the last part of the climb I walked along the blue route (it is easier). I walked 25,000 steps in the climb and descent, and those were the hardest steps of my life, seriously.
Back I went down first the black route, then the blue one, and most of the way back I took the yellow route. Of the three routes I tested, the black one seemed the most picturesque, but the yellow route is, as it turned out, the former bobsleigh track, which was used in this capacity in the interwar years, that is, almost a hundred years ago.
