Malá Fatra - a two-day ridge trek

I'd only been to the Malá Fatra once, as a small boy, and back then I "got lost" here and gave my parents a real fright. Well, not that I got completely lost, but I set off on a hike with a faster group (without my parents' permission) that was taking a route about 10 km longer than the one planned for families with children, and its members recklessly took me along without food or warmer clothing. In the end it all turned out fine, and for several years now I'd been planning to head to the Malá Fatra again. I was a little put off by my bad luck, because every time I set out for Slovakia I caught poor weather and didn't get much walking done as a result. And when I did, it was in the rain. But this year the weather is so gorgeous that I took the risk.

After my trip to the

I already had a rough idea of how difficult a route I could plan, so I sat down with a map and the internet. The problem, on a multi-day mountain hike, is always planning food and sleep. On the Malá Fatra ridge there is essentially only the

. I tried writing and calling there, but in vain. The second alternative is

, but that one is a little off to the side and you have to descend to an altitude of about 1,000 metres above sea level to reach it, which at the end of the first day isn't very ideal. But I did get through to this hut by phone, so I had the certainty that I could definitely spend the night somewhere.

On Friday after work I set off by car and, after about three hours on the road, I was already pitching my tent in the village of Belá. There aren't many camping options here, which is why I ended up here, but it definitely won't be one of my favourite spots. The campsite lies between a busy road and a river and, on top of that, was very overcrowded. So I couldn't even dream of a peaceful night's sleep.
 But I needed to get up at 5:30 anyway, so I could have a leisurely breakfast, pack up the tent and drive off to the start of my trek. (So that I could leave the car at the start of the route and then easily get back to it the following evening, I chose the Nezbudská Lúčka–Strečno railway station as my starting point, where I parked comfortably. The goal of the two-day hike was to be the Kraľovany zastávka station, from where I could conveniently get back to the car by train.)

Today 18 km with an elevation gain of about 2,000 metres lay ahead of me, so there was no time to dawdle. I don't know why, but I set off on the yellow trail, then searched in vain for a nature trail (which was supposed to lead me to the red trail, but no longer exists), and then, following the advice of locals and the maps on my phone, made my way cross-country onto the red trail, which I could and should have joined right at the very start. The path continued steeply upwards. Past the ruins of the Starý hrad castle you climb higher and higher. Don't expect any wide road or a tidy little path. Along the whole Malá Fatra route I kept marvelling that it was just such a narrow little trail, complicated in places, because it runs over rocks, small crags, roots and puddles. It certainly can't be compared with the beautiful wide trails in the Dolomites, and the awkwardness of the route saps a lot of your strength.

The peaks and saddles of the Malá Fatra are quite far apart in terms of altitude, so each further peak meant more and more metres climbed. On top of that came somewhat more technically demanding terrain, with scrambling over crags around the Biele skaly and Stratenec peaks. Nevertheless the weather favoured me and the landscape all around was so beautiful that it successfully overrode any fatigue, and every so often I stopped to take photos. It went on like this all the way to the next significant peak, Malý Kriváň (1,671 m a.s.l.). I was at the top, a view in every direction — sheer beauty. But with a glance at my watch it was already fairly clear to me that it would be better to spend the night at Chata pod Chlebom, because I'd probably reach Chata na Grúni after dark. My water supplies were also dwindling, so I happily descended to a small — really small — spring below Malý Kriváň (

) and topped up my supplies.


Then followed more descending and ascending, and over a little hill named Pekelník (the climb up here is truly hellishly steep) I finally reached Veľký Kriváň (1,709 m a.s.l.). I had thus conquered the goal of the journey, the highest mountain of the Malá Fatra. I spent about fifteen or twenty minutes here soaking up the view and resting, and I also ran into a man who assured me that you could spend the night at Chata pod Chlebom. So I set off down the hill to end today's stage right there. Since it really is the most strategically located hut, it was literally besieged. That I'd be sleeping in the attic on a bunk was just my own fond notion. Nevertheless the local operators are so accommodating that you can camp on the meadow by the hut for a symbolic fee of 1 EUR per person, or sleep for free anywhere out under the stars. They even leave the hut open, so anyone who's cold can sleep right in the restaurant on the floor.

You can eat and drink brilliantly here, even take a shower, so I certainly lacked for nothing. When the stars came out (I'd expected excellent visibility here, but the sky clouded over quite a bit), I settled onto my sleeping mat and fell asleep. Around half past four an approaching thunderstorm woke me, so I moved to the floor inside the pub, to be safe. There, in turn, the staff woke me at six, saying they had to get breakfast ready and that everyone sleeping there had to leave. So I packed up, had breakfast, and after seven, once a decent downpour had passed (my Slovak weather curse was already catching up with me), I set off on the next stage of the journey.


Storm clouds chased across the sky and the sun completed an incredible atmosphere. Slowly I climbed back up into the hills again, to the peak named Steny – južný vrchol (1,572 m a.s.l.). This section looks like the ridge walk everyone probably imagines. But the idyll ends at the Stohové sedlo saddle, where the path breaks steeply upwards again onto the Stoh peak. After the night's rain the trail here was full of puddles and extremely slippery mud. So I preferred to take the yellow-marked detour to bypass the peak. It was definitely a good idea, because even this part of the path (full of stones, roots and puddles) was quite unpleasant in its muddy state.


By this path I reached the Medziholie junction, where the majestic peak of Rozsutec towered before me. I'd originally thought I'd climb it too and then return to the junction and continue downwards, but because another thunderstorm was rolling in, I chose to retreat and turned onto the green trail heading down into the valley. Rozsutec is the most technically demanding of all the Malá Fatra peaks, and climbing it in a thunderstorm isn't exactly easy. So I'll have to have a look at it some other time.


The green trail that leads down into the valley probably isn't much frequented. A barely visible little path led me downhill, but before long I lost both the path and the markings. For cases like these it's good to have offline maps on your phone, and so, with a slight detour, I managed to get back onto the green trail. In the meantime the rain came, so I did the last roughly 7 km of the route in a decent downpour. Had the weather been better and had I had more time, I definitely wouldn't have taken the green trail from Medziholie, but would have gone along the blue one through Osnica to Párnica, from where there's a train connection.

The railway stop I reached looked as though no train had run here in about 30 years, but surprisingly one did eventually arrive and I set off back. One change, 45 min on the train, no one to sell me a ticket (so the trip was free), and I was at the car. Then a quick dinner at a local koliba and off home by car. They were two great days of walking in the mountains. 18 km with 2,000 m of elevation gain in the Malá Fatra is something completely different from a route with similar parameters in the Dolomites. That little narrow trail and the more complicated terrain simply sap a lot of your energy. In the end I walked some 34 km, and it was just about right. I returned home with a wealth of experiences and photos, which is exactly how it should be after an active weekend.

Tip 1: Bring at least 2 litres of water and top up at every hut or spring with drinking water. Especially in warm weather, water is essential, and there aren't many places to refill it. Over 2 days I essentially came across only 3 places where it could be refilled. The first was Chata pod Suchým (not a spring, but right in the hut), the second was a small spring past Malý Kriváň, and the third was Chata pod Chlebom.

Tip 2: Besides a sleeping mat and sleeping bag, I recommend also bringing some kind of tarp, which you can spread over your trekking poles to make an improvised shelter. You never know when you'll be woken by rain in the night.

Gear: You probably won't feel like lugging heavy equipment on a hike like this, so choose carefully what gear you take with you. For me it was an Olympus OM-D M10 with a 12–55mm lens (i.e. the equivalent of 24–110mm on full frame), a GoPro camera for time-lapses and a small, compact tripod. Of course, if you feel up to a heavier load, a DSLR with a wide-angle lens and some lighter telephoto lens will come in handy. It's also often possible to photograph the stars well in the mountains, so a remote shutter release may come in handy too.