Mosorny Groń

Mosorny Groń. Zawoja is one of the largest villages in Poland: it stretches along the upper valley of the Skawica, whose source streams reach the highest parts of the Western Beskids, the Babia Góra massif. Zawoja is known and liked by tourists precisely as a starting point for that massif, and its career as a summer resort began back in the late 19th century. In winter there are far fewer tourists, but more and more skiers are visiting Zawoja, especially since a proper ski resort was built here, on Mosorny Groń. Zawoja's skiing history goes back to the mid '70s, when three T-bars were built in different parts of the village: in Widły, by Lajkonik and on Policzne. As late as the mid '80s, at a time when skiing was developing very rapidly, Marek Baran wrote in his guide to the ski areas of what was then Bielsko province: "The proximity of Babia Góra National Park and the almost complete forest cover of the protected northern slopes of Babia Góra and Polica mean that Zawoja will probably never become a large ski resort". The situation changed, however, when in 2003 a 4-seater Poma chairlift, modern for its time, was built in place of the T-bar on Policzne, more than 130 metres long, with a vertical rise of 335 metres and a capacity of 2,400 people per hour. A piste was laid out along the chairlift, running through a forest cutting 30 to 40 metres wide in its upper part and across the clearings and fields of Policzne lower down. It is a red piste just under one and a half kilometres long, steeper especially in its upper part and at the very bottom, before the run-out to the valley station, and it is fully covered by snowmaking and floodlighting. At the bottom there is a restaurant and, on the other side of the road, a traditional wooden regional inn, and there is also a bar at the top station. From here there is a superb view of the northern, gully-scarred slopes of Babia Góra, which gives the whole resort a slightly high-alpine character. The view and the piste itself are the resort's biggest assets, while its biggest drawback is monotony: one piste, even a fairly interesting one, is still a bit too little. The second problem is the south-west aspect of the piste, which, especially in the lower part of the slope, means the snow quickly turns wet on sunny days and unpleasant piles of loose snow build up; combined with the frequent icing of the lower "step", this creates some technical difficulty. Since the privatisation of PKL (Polskie Koleje Linowe), which has owned the resort on Mosorny for several years, there has been talk of expanding it, but for now everything remains plans on paper (or online).