It was raining this morning as I packed up a very wet tent and collected water from the nearby spring. The wet weather continued throughout the day. Trees were engulfed in mist as I walked along. Shreds of clouds crossed nearby hills on the occasions when I see them. Even when the rain stopped there was plenty of water dripping from the leaves.
Shortly after I set off I disturbed an elk with an impressive set of antlers. It stood up and looked at me, I stood still, and we stared at each other for a few moments. Then it raced off. Later I saw two wild boar on the path; big, brown and hairy. They quickly scarpered on seeing me. Finally a deer was grazing by the track, but ran off as soon as it spotted me.
There were the usual energy sapping uphill struggles to frequent summits, followed by descents that were painful on the knees. Such downhill sections were distressing as I knew I would shortly have to make up the height again. The highest mountain was Mincol at 1153 metres. There appeared to be two summits at Mincol, one with a large cross and the other with a concrete column, not sure which was the highest. As the mountain top was covered with blueberry bushes and similar low vegetation there might have been a view on a good day, but today there was mostly whiteness.
After many more summits and dealing with numerous trees which had fallen across the track, I descended to a low saddle by the village of Obručné in a break in the rain. The trail does not pass through the village and there were no shops or other facilities according to Google, so I immediately started the next section.
I had now reached the Polish border. For a few days the E3 follows the border heading east. It then turns around and heads west a few miles into Poland. Some people cut out this huge loop. I planned to follow it, although there will be the temptation to shortcut it at various points. I did wonder why such a large loop was included in the E3. One explanation relates to the EB (Eisenbach Budapest) trail. This is an old trail dating from 1983, before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Running through multiple countries, in those pre-Schengen, more authoritarian times it was necessary for the path to cross between countries at official border crossings. The E3 follows much of the older EB route, so perhaps this is why it heads east to cross at what was an official crossing point at the Dukla Pass.
The border was marked by frequent squat concrete rectangles painted white with red tops. There was an S on one side and P on the. other. I followed these posts on a track heading generally uphill. The track wandered around the posts so sometimes I was in Slovakia and then a few yards later I was in Poland.
Towards the end of the afternoon I reached a steel observation tower. I climbed its steep staircases but could not see much that I could at ground level. There was a little shelter with bench seating and tables next to the grey tower. Taking advantage of the dryness under the shelter I put on a knee support as my knee was suffering with all the ups and downs. Inevitably it was at the bottom of the pack requiring much unpacking. The repacking was not too successful and my rucksack continued rather oddly shaped. At a nearby spring I topped up with water. I then needed to leave the forest and cross some fields. Unfortunately a farmer had strung electric fences everywhere, combined with warnings of a dangerous dog (judging by the picture). I worked my way around the fences but was glad to return to the forest where the tracks were generally good.
As it approached 5:30 pm I decided to pitch camp on finding a suitable flat spot under conifers a little before the Pusta summit. I then spent some time trying to dry the tent. It is still raining gently and rain is forecast for tomorrow as well.
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