Jarmuta

Jarmuta is a 794 m massif in the Small Pieniny in southern Poland, above the spa town of Szczawnica. It stands well apart from its neighbours and has two main summits: Jarmuta proper (794 m) and Czuprana (777 m), separated by the Matwijowa pass (763 m); a lower top, Jarmutka (690 m), rises to the north-west. The Klimontowska pass (696 m) separates Jarmuta from the main ridge of the Small Pieniny, and the nearest summit of that ridge, Cyrhla, is about 750 m away as the crow flies.

The hill lies in the Szczawnica municipality of Nowy Targ County (Lesser Poland), outside the Pieniny National Park. Its northern slopes fall to the Grajcarek valley, the south-western ones to the Klimontowski stream and the south-eastern ones to the Pałkowski stream. Szlachtowa is about 1.5 km away, central Szczawnica about 2.8 km.

How to get there / routes

No PTTK-marked tourist trail crosses Jarmuta. Forest roads and paths lead to the top; OpenStreetMap shows a local “Path to Jarmuta” maintained by a local association. The easiest approaches are from Szlachtowa or Szczawnica. There are no official walking times, so rely on a map and GPS. The marked trails of the main Small Pieniny ridge pass nearby but bypass Jarmuta.

What you can see from the summit

The massif is almost entirely forested, but the summit and the northern slopes just below it are occupied by the Andrzejówka glade. It offers a good view, especially of the Radziejowa range in the Sądecki Beskid, and is used by paragliders. A TV relay transmitter has stood on the summit since 1963.

Nature and history

The western slopes are covered mostly by Carpathian beech forest with some pine, while spruce dominates on the eastern and northern sides. Near the Klimontowska pass a belt of spruce planted on a burnt area reaches almost to the summit. The massif belongs to the Pieniny Klippen Belt: Jurassic and Cretaceous shales, limestones and radiolarites, plus Upper Cretaceous sandstones, conglomerates and shales of the so-called Jarmuta Formation. Of special interest are Miocene Pieniny andesites forming sills; they were quarried at Malinów on the northern slopes of Czuprana until the 1970s.

Jarmuta has a mining past. Prospecting for gold and silver in the area is recorded from the 15th century, but the key period was the 18th. In 1732 Prince Paweł Karol Sanguszko, owner of the Szlachtowa estate, founded a mining and smelting company that was closed in 1736; Andrzej Bittener later revived the work, but a failed smelt in 1739 ended the venture. Ore was mined in three adits. The best preserved, the “Bania w Jarmucie” on the eastern slopes, has two galleries 67 m and 35 m long linked by a vertical shaft. Because of its bats it was protected in 1997 as an ecological site and is closed to visitors. Another adit, the “Wodna Bania”, is partly flooded and dangerous.

Legend says a pagan shrine once stood on the summit and that the name comes from an old deity. Before the Second World War there was a ski jump on the northern slopes. In May 2010 a flood triggered a landslide on the hillside.

Safety, season and rules

Jarmuta is a low wooded hill accessible almost all year, but without waymarks it is easy to lose your way among forest roads, so carry an offline map. Do not enter the old adits – they are protected, partly flooded and dangerous. After heavy rain the slopes can be prone to slides and the paths slippery. In winter snow lies on the glades, so wear suitable footwear.

The Pieniny are covered by the Podhale group of the mountain rescue service GOPR (station in Szczawnica): call 985 or +48 601 100 300, or 112; installing the «Ratunek» app is recommended.

Interesting facts

• In the 18th century gold and silver were sought on Jarmuta; the ore was to be smelted in Szlachtowa, but the smelt of 1739 failed.
• The “Bania w Jarmucie” adit is protected as a bat roost.
• The relay transmitter on the summit has operated since 1963.

Photos: real name: Mariusz Rzepkowski pl.wiki: MariuszR commons: MariuszR, CC BY-SA 2.5; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 3.0; MOs810, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.