Hiking et al.

June 28, 2006

Again, the month of June seems to have flown by, and here I am in Warsaw, thinking about all that has happened in the past few weeks. The weather has turned from the cold, damp, and windy late spring that seemed to plague the beginning of June, to hot and humid continental weather. It’s been in the 90’s recently, although I can’t complain too much, since the humidity level has been not very high, which is definitely an unusual situation here in the summer. Being from Utah I am used to dry heat, so while others are complaining about the weather right now, I can only rejoice and be glad that summer is finally here!

A week-and-a-half ago, I went hiking to the Polish Beskidy mountains with some of my friends from my residence. Our destination was Babia Gora, “Grandmother’s/Old Maid’s Mountain,” which is the highest peak in that mountain range, and is actually a long ridge, which stretched across the Polish-Slovakian border. The highest of the peaks is aptly named, “Diablak,” something to the extent of “little devil,” since the top is known for its hurricane-force winds, sudden changes of temperatures, and steep ascent.

In order to get to the mountain, we had to drive through a series of Polish mountain towns, including one of the highest towns in Poland, Zawoja. After driving through this last in a string of towns, we entered a national park, “Babiogorski Park Narodowy,” a beautiful and pristine wilderness, full of lush aciduous trees and small streams. A mere two hour drive from Kraków, one of the largest cities in Poland, I found myself in a completely different world—the world which inspired the poems of Karol Wojtyla, which speaks of God’s grandeur, and which even drew Emperor Franz Joseph there during the Austrian partitions. Here, the world was quiet, yet filled with the chatter of birds, the trickle of streams. Here, where there was no civilization, was a world of a different kind. The green ferns that provided a ground cover provided safe-haven for various life forms, the open skies were perfect for the keen eyes of the raptors that circled above, and the streams provided fresh mountain water to deer that wandered through the forest.

It was upon arriving here that one of the first things we saw was a sign, which commemorated “Cardinal Karol Wojtyla’s last hike before he was chosen as the successor of St. Peter.” This sign only made me laugh to myself—how many times did I go somewhere and unexpectedly run into something that had to do with that man’s life? But then again, I thought that if I had seen so much in a short five months, then of course it must be possible that he, as a person who lived there his entire life (or at least fifty eight years of it), must have been everywhere. Seriously. No matter where one goes, throughout the various streets of Kraków, or in the sharp and rugged Tatra Mountains, or here, in the rolling Beskidy mountains, there are always signs that relate stories from different “phases” of the man’s life. Of course, now that I am here in Warsaw for the week, the streets are also pasted with plaques and memorials that can even commemorate something like “Pope John Paul II prayed here on June 6th, 1979,” or something to that extent. And rightly so. Poland has much to be proud of in this son, who, as one friend of his put it, “was to great of a man to remain in Poland.” Or as Fr. Stan raps, “what a shock, Polack, from the eastern bloc…”

Starting at the memorial plaque, we climbed the mountain in what probably turned out to be record speed. Though all maps and other signs and indications specified a hiking time of two and a half hours to the top, we made it up in an hour and fifteen minutes! Of course, there were side effects of such a grueling pace. Not to get into the nasty details, but we were so sweaty, that swarms of flies kept attacking us for the entire way up! I am not kidding when I say that I have not seen so many flies in one spot at the same time (actually, now that I think about it, I think only the brine flies on the beach of the Great Salt Lake exist in larger numbers…but then again, the Great Salt Lake is really nasty, so what does one expect?) Having reached the top, we all finally breathed a sigh of relief when the wind picked up and blew the flies away—the constant and excessive buzz around our ears had become quite a nuisance!

Upon reaching the top, I found—what do you expect—another monument commemorating John Paul’s last “visit” to the top of the mountain, when his helicopter circled above it in a fly over in 2002. He had climbed the mountain many times, and wanted to see it for one last time when he left his homeland for what would be the final time. This monument was located on the Polish-Slovak border, which runs across the top of the mountain—so one side was in Slovak, and the other side in Polish.

We chose to return back to our car via another route—the steep and sometimes fatal trail, known as “Academic Ridge,” probably for the large number of college students who choose to either ascend or descend via this route. Though technically not too challenging, the main danger lies in the steepness of the slope, which can very easily become very hazardous during a slight rainstorm, or with snow cover. After the initial part, though, we did reach a few cliffs, were we had to climb down with the help of metal chains and ladders that had been permanently placed there by the park service. Having descended on these, we reached a few last snowfields, were we had to have the initial snowball fights. These all were fine, until I accidentally through an ice ball at my friend camera! Luckily, after it all dried out, it was fine and kept being able to document our journey!

One of the best things about Poland, and especially “Little Poland,” which is the southern region of Poland, are the small distances between everything. It’s still hard for me to get used to the fact that everything is so objectively close, yet seems to be far away. Coming from the western United States, where one has to drive twenty miles to Church, and easily commutes over a hundred miles a day, it is still hard to get used to the fact that sometimes within very small distances, there can be a very diverse number of climate changes, different towns, and local customs. Having descended from the mountain, we reached our car and saw that we still had a few hours, so we decided to go to Wadowice for a dinner and, of course, papal cream pastries. Without a car, especially, it would seem that these two places were very far from each other, and very separated both by climate and by culture. The one being a small industrial town, and the other being a semi-remote national park, it would seem that they would not all be within about thirty or forty miles of each other.

I was shocked to learn that two of the friends that I was with had never been to Wadowice, which was ironic, since I was the one from the U.S., and I had already been there a few times. So, we decided that they needed to go there. We were able to visit the main church, St. Mary’s Basilica, and pray at the baptismal font of the little “Lolek,” which was followed by eating up probably all of the calories that we had burned up on our hike—two cream pastries a person! Seeing that I have not recounted this story before in this journal, perhaps I should share it, since not all readers will know what “papal cream pastries” are and why Wadowice is now famous for them.

The Holy Father’s visit to Poland in 1999 was perhaps one of the most memorable, since it included many situations in which the Holy Father improvised and digressed from the written speeches that he had prepared. This was especially true in Wadowice, where he reminisced about his childhood days, naming some of the friends he remembered from school, and recounting memories from those times of his childhood.

“Over there on the corner is where we would go for “kremówki,” (cream pastries) with my friend, after we finished high school,” recalled the Holy Father with a wide grin and smirk on his face. Upon seeing the crowd’s reaction, he also laughed, and leaned over to the side to laugh discreetly.
What people learned later was the full story—Karol and his friends used to go to the pastry shop and make bets on who would eat the most “kremowki.” They did this not only for the taste of the delicious and fattening pastries, but also because they had rum in them, so in reality, one might say that they wanted to see who would get a little boozed off of them first. Realistically, this would not be very easy, and I’m not sure how many one would have to eat, but the future pope lost the bet, since he “only” ate seven.

Needless to say, after this improvisational commercial for all of the bakers and pastry shops in Wadowice, “Papal Kremowki” became a huge and popular success, and now every shop in Wadowice sells the “original” papal cream pastries. (I hear that the same is starting to happen in Marktl am Inn, where the local pastry shops have been baking “papal chocolate torte,” apparently a favorite of Joseph Ratzinger. It will be interesting to see if this is mentioned when he visits his hometown in September).

After this long day of hiking, of visiting, and of eating, we finally came home in the evening, satisfied, if not a bit tired, but thankful for a wonderful day—a sort of unexpected pilgrimage in the footsteps of Karol Wojtyla. The fact that we were tired, though, did not mean that we refrained from having a traditional Saturday night grill, with chicken and Polish kielbasa, with all of our friends from the residence, and others as well.