Caryńska Polonyna in Bieszczady Mountains

Bieszczady Mountains are known for their wide open polonynas – meadows located in the upper zone of mountains. They offer beautiful landscapes at low altitudes which makes them accessible even for people with not the best condition. One of places worth to visit is Caryńska Polonyna in Bieszczady National Park.

I’ve visited Bieszczady with my friends in June of 2015. It was long weekend. On Thursday, 4th of June it was Corpus Christi feast, so, as many people in Poland we took a day off on Friday and went on holidays for four days. After long journey by bus at night we’ve arrived in the morning to village Ustrzyki Górne. Because of long weekend we hadn’t manage to book a room anywhere so we settled at campsite. It was sooo cold! If you ever plan to spend nights in a tent in the beginning of June in Poland remember to take a warm sleeping-bag. During the days it was warm, about 20 – 25°C, but during the nights temperature was dropping to ca. 0 – 5°C. I wasn’t prepared for it ;)

Below I marked our trip on first day. You can see it also at mapa-turystyczna.pl.

First part of journey leads on red trail in the forest. You have to climb from 600 m a.s.l. to about 1070 m a.s.l. before you see the landscapes like this:

Altough it was long weekend, to my surprise on this trail there weren’t many tourists so noone covered nice views :)

The trail on Carynska Polonyna (Połonina Caryńska) leads to village Brzegi Górne. If you want to do only short trip, you can go to this village and take a bus back to Ustrzyki Górne. We walked a bit longer, round trip. From Polonyna Carynska we went down by green trail, crossed the road and climbed on Mała Rawka and Wielka Rawka hills which are also worth to see. In the meantime you can eat lunch in the hut “Pod Małą Rawką” which is marked on mapa-turystyczna.pl.

It was pretty easy hike. It took us about 7 hours so in the evening I had time to sleep off the night before :)