Szczyrk Mountain Resort

The whole area is a small (though by Polish standards quite sizeable) ski seesaw, with slopes falling away on both sides of a central point. That point is Hala Skrzyczeńska (1,010 m), on a ridge running down from Małe Skrzyczne (1,201 m). Slopes drop from it on two sides: towards Czyrna, where four T-bars (in two parallel pairs) lead back up, and towards Solisko, where a modern six-seater chairlift runs to the top. Hala Skrzyczeńska can also be reached by a brand new gondola that starts by the main road through Szczyrk, and from Hala Skrzyczeńska a pair of lifts continues to the summit of Małe Skrzyczne. From Solisko, another six-seater chairlift takes you to a second, somewhat separate area on the slopes of Pośredni (990 m), which skiers usually call Juliany. Besides the chairlift, it has two T-bars and a few kilometres of pistes. The pistes themselves are very varied, mostly covered by snowmaking, and two of them are floodlit. From the summit of Małe Skrzyczne a straight piste runs down along the T-bars to Hala Skrzyczeńska, even a little too flat towards the end, and from there you have several options. Three pistes descend towards Czyrna, getting steeper and more demanding the closer they run to the T-bars: one red and two blue, the outermost of which is genuinely easy. The black Bieńkula piste, the true "pearl of Szczyrk", also drops towards Czyrna. It is FIS-homologated for giant slalom and is 1,500 metres long with a vertical drop of 390 metres. The slope falls away "just as it should", it is wide enough and the skiing can be properly fast. From Hala Skrzyczeńska you can also ski down to Solisko. There are two pistes here: an easier blue and red no. 7, one of the most interesting in the whole resort. On Juliany, around Hala Pośrednia, there are easy pistes and one slightly steeper red (no. 10). From Hala Pośrednia down to Solisko you ski the demanding red piste with the telling name "Golgota". In the 2017/18 season a completely new blue piste was also built for less demanding skiers. Car parks giving access to the area are in three places: in Czyrna (or nearby, a few minutes' walk away), at the valley station of the new gondola, in Solisko, and level with Hala Pośrednia, at the hairpin of the road to Wisła. Each of these places has food outlets (as do Polana Sucha and Hala Pośrednia), plus equipment rental, a ski service and ski schools. Finally, it is worth briefly recalling the history of this place, which for many years was packed with skiers and which the Slovaks bought in a state of complete decline. The first lifts were built here from the mid-'60s, and the order in which they went up shows in their numbering. In the '80s and early '90s it was the best and most heavily invested ski area in Poland, operating as the Górniczy Ośrodek Narciarski (Miners' Ski Centre); its main investors were Silesian coal mines. In the '90s, as a result of ownership changes, GON, which had been taken over by Gliwicka Spółka Węglowa, was handed to Gliwicka Agencja Turystyczna S.A. without its ownership being properly settled. From then on, not a single new investment was made at the resort. From 2001 the State Treasury owned GAT, and the situation got even worse. The main problem in the whole affair was the complicated and never fully clarified ownership: the land under the pistes belonged to more than 100 owners, and the infrastructure to GAT. On top of that came the fallout from Gliwicka Spółka Węglowa appropriating the lifts, even though the prosecutor's office dropped the case in 2001. The resulting disappointment of many landowners, who had hoped to take over the lifts, led to open conflict between GAT and some of the owners, represented by the company they set up, Szczyrkowski Ośrodek Narciarski S.A. 9 of the 13 lifts stopped and parts of the pistes were fenced off. Although this is now history, the whole affair badly damaged the reputation of Szczyrk as a skier-friendly place. Year after year, fewer skiers visited the town. In this light, it is no surprise that skiers and local businesses pinned their hopes on the arrival of a Slovak company in Szczyrk.