Leaving my hotel my rucksack felt heavy as I will be wild camping tonight and so I am carrying extra food and water. After an hour or so I get used to the weight, at least to a degree. Despite the weight I paused in the main square in front of my hotel to read a few of the information boards and look in at the Franciscan Church. I learnt that Trstena has a long history as an important town in the Orava region but did not stop to visit any more of the listed sites.
The first part of my day was a climb up to the summit of Uhlisko in intermittent rain and then a descent down the other side to the Orava hydroelectric dam. All through trees, tall conifers, except for an area of long grass on the way down. From the grassland I could see across the flooded valleys of a huge reservoir. Under the lowering clouds the water's surface looked like dusty mercury. The final stretch to the dam was through trees, overgrown and wet, it was little used by humans.
The dam itself could do with a café, I was not the only one walking across it, and with the poor weather, viewing the water from the inside of a café would have been pleasant. An information board refered to villages that had been flooded when the dam was built in the 1950's. After the dam it was a matter of climbing up and along the next ridge, a long ridge of fir trees that I would follow for many kilometres. Starting this climb was made difficult as the point where the path left the road, by a faded sign, was overgrown with tree saplings. Much pushing and crashing through branches was needed until I reached a clearer if narrow path. Then the route crossed a large field of crops. I kept to lines made by tractor tyres to avoid doing too much damage. After that the E3 joined larger tracks through forestry for the remainder of the day. Some of these were heavily rutted by the passage of many large forestry vehicles, dragging logs. There were large pools of water and areas of mud. The rain made even some of the better tracks slippery, especially as mud accumulated on my boots. However there were often little paths making diversions around the worst sections. Tracks not recently used by vehicles faced the problem of fallen trees, again often requiring extensive diversions. While forestry activity generally left a mess of ruts, mud and broken branches, they did consider hikers. Trees on which footpath waymarks had been painted were cut off above the red and white painted stripes, leaving unusually tall stumps.
There were several summits on the ridge to climb over. The Stations of the Cross led up to one of the earlier high points. At the 14th station there was a covered shelter where I had a snack. I passed a number of simple shelters, a roof over a table and benches, very handy for hikers like myself. There were also notice boards which read like a prayer from the woods, pointing out all the useful things the forest provides and asking you to protect it. Magurka summit had a large transmiter tower. A little after was a cottage where you could stay if you made the right arrangements. It had a "Self Service Buffet" where I put 2 Euros into the honesty box for a soft drink. The highest summit was Budin at 1221 metres. There were some views when the clouds cleared of villages in the valleys below, other times mist embraced me.
My aim was to camp a few kilometres short of the Prislop Pass, maybe I am a little further away but seeing a flat spot among the trees a little before the Javorova summit I decided to pitch my tent. Soon after the rain began again with peals of thunder, so I count myself fortunate.
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