Babica (Maków Beskids)

Babica is a wooded summit about 728 m high in the Makowski Beskids in the south of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland. It is the highest point of the Babica Range, the northernmost ridge of the Makowski Beskids, which separates the basin of the village of Budzów and the Paleczka stream from the Raba valley and the town of Myślenice. The forests covering the mountain belong to one of the most compact forest complexes of the Middle Beskids.

The Babica Range

The range runs from the mouth of the Jachówka into the Paleczka at Budzów north-east almost to where the Bysinka joins the Raba in Myślenice. It is strongly elongated and surrounded on all sides by stream valleys; it is linked to the neighbouring hills only by two passes, Przełęcz Sanguszki and Przełęcz Szklarska. Curiously, streams on the same side of the range flow in opposite directions, because the watershed between the Raba basin (Bysinka, Trzebuńka) and the Skawa basin (Paleczka, Jachówka, Gościbia) crosses the range. The ridge is even and its summits are indistinct; besides Babica they include Bucznik (634 m), Jachowska Góra (642 m), Krowia Góra (617 m), Kijówka (615 m), Szklana Góra (576 m), Trzebuńska Góra (625 m) and Sularzowa (617 m).

How to get there / routes

The red Little Beskid Trail (Mały Szlak Beskidzki), which follows the ridges of the Makowski and Wyspowy Beskids, crosses the summit; on the Babica Range it runs along the ridge from the village of Palcza to Myślenice. Near the summit of Dział it is joined by a green trail from Trzebunia, which ends there. So Babica can be reached both from Myślenice and from the Budzów and Palcza side.

What you can see from the top

The summit is wooded, but there is a view towards Luboń Wielki. Lower down on the ridge there are viewpoint clearings – remnants of old fields and pastures that are no longer farmed and are slowly reverting to forest.

Nature

The lower slopes of the range are open, with fields and village buildings in the valleys. The ridge is forested and holds two protected sites: the large Las Gościbia nature reserve and two ancient yews known as the Raciborski Yews. These trees grow on the north-western slope of the range in the village of Harbutowice and are counted among the oldest trees in Poland: they have been protected since 1934 and have been natural monuments since 1954. The larger, female tree has a girth of about 3 m and a height of 15 m; in 1992 its age was estimated at about 667 years. The yews were named in 1917 after the botanist Marian Raciborski, a pioneer of nature conservation in Poland. Yew wood is hard, heavy and rot-resistant, so it was long used for bows, crossbows and furniture – which is why few yews are left in Polish forests.

Safety, season and rules

The mountain is low and accessible all year round, with no difficult sections; in the large forest keep an eye on the waymarks, and after rain the forest roads on the ridge can be very muddy. Mountain rescue in the Beskids is provided by GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300, plus the general emergency number 112.

Photos: Nalepa Jan, CC BY-SA 4.0; Nalepa Jan, CC BY-SA 4.0; Adrian Tync, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.