Rakoń by the Shortest Route

Start at the PTTK mountain shelter on Polana Chochołowska (1090 m). Keep in mind that you still have 7 km of road from the parking lot at Siwa Polana to reach the mountain shelter, so your legs are warmed up before you even put your skins on. Beyond the hut the route heads straight south, through forest and then increasingly open terrain toward Rakoń. There's no classic ridge or long traverses here, just a solid ascent straight up. The forest and dwarf pine section can be a real grind: with thin snow cover it's narrow and frozen. No point sugarcoating it: in poor snow, from the dwarf pine down, this is not a route for a splitboard. As soon as you get above the dwarf pine, the whole feel changes. Open slope, frozen snow that softens on top in the sun: these are exactly the conditions we come here for. On the summit of Rakoń you can see that someone has been wandering around on the ridge, and rightly so, because the views of Dolina Rohacka and the Slovak side are worth every step. The descent down the wide slope from the top is a dream. Then the forest puts you to the test.