Czerniawa Sucha

Czerniawa Sucha (also Suchy Groń or Sucha Góra) is a 1,062 m summit on the main ridge of the Jałowiec Range, north of the Babia Góra massif. The summit and its ridge carry the boundary between Zawoja in Lesser Poland and Koszarawa in the Silesian Voivodeship. In Jerzy Kondracki's regionalisation the Jałowiec Range belongs to the Maków Beskids; tourist maps and guidebooks usually count it as part of the Żywiec Beskids, and the 2018 scheme as part of the Żywiec-Orava Beskids. The nearest hamlets, Beskidek and Kluskówka, lie about 1 km from the top.

Czerniawa Sucha stands between Beskidek and Jałowiec, from which it is separated by the Sucha Pass (982 m). It is a junction peak: the Lachów Groń ridge branches off to the west. The long summit ridge has three tops — the western (1,051 m), the middle and highest (1,062 m), and the smallest, eastern one called Beskidek (1,045 m).

The Jałowiec Range, called the Pre-Babia Góra Range in older literature, runs from south-west to north-east between the Koszarawa and Stryszawka valleys in the west and the Skawica and Skawa valleys in the east. Its main ridge, about 19 km long, starts at the Klekociny Pass (894 m), where the Mędralowa range ends, and Czerniawa Sucha is the first major summit on it. There are no mountain huts in the range; the former pastures on Hala Trzebuńska and Hala Janoszkowa are no longer grazed, but traditional sheep herding still goes on at the shepherds' hut in the Barankowa hamlet near the Klekociny Pass.

How to get there / trails

Two marked trails cross Czerniawa Sucha, meeting a little west of the summit:

• Green "Ścieżka Żywczaków" (in OSM the PTTK route Sidzina – Jabłonka): Koszarawa Cicha — Czerniawa Sucha — Klekociny Pass — Kolisty Groń — Jałowiec Pass — Cyl (Mała Babia Góra) — Babia Góra. It is one of the long approach routes to Babia Góra from the west.
• Yellow trail Koszarawa — Lachów Groń — Czerniawa Sucha — Sucha Pass — Jałowiec, part of the long traverse of the Jałowiec Range from the Przysłop Pass.

The view from the top

Czerniawa Sucha is mostly wooded, so there is little view from the summit itself. On the southern side, however, the fields and farmsteads of Bystra, a hamlet of Koszarawa, climb almost to the top of Beskidek. From the upper edge of these fields, just below the forest, there is a wide panorama of the Polica range, Babia Góra and Mała Babia Góra, Kolisty Groń with Hala Kamińskiego, Pilsko and Romanka.

The spur running west from Czerniawa Sucha ends at Lachów Groń (1,045 m), a mountain with two almost equal tops 280 m apart and a wide panorama of Babia Góra, the Polica range, Jałowiec and Pilsko. On its summit meadow, Hala Janoszkowa, stands a former shepherds' hut where hikers can spend the night in very basic conditions if needed.

The name

According to linguist Aleksy Siemionow, the proper name of the mountain is Sucha Góra ("Dry Mountain"): that is what local people called it, while the forest growing on it was called Czerniawa. The name Czerniawa Sucha was introduced by an Austrian map and has stayed on all later Polish maps.

Safety, season and rules

It is a wooded mountain without crags, accessible all year; in winter the paths can be snowy, and there is no water on the ridge. The mountain lies outside national parks. Mountain rescue in the Beskids is provided by GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300, and 112.

Photos: Yarl, CC BY-SA 3.0; Adrian Tync, CC BY 4.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.