Magurka Wilkowicka

Magurka Wilkowicka is a 909 m summit, the fourth-highest in the Little Beskids, in the Magurka Wilkowicka group in the south of the Silesian Voivodeship. It stands on the main ridge of the group between Czupel (930 m) and Sokołówka (853 m); a side ridge with the tops of Rogacz and Łysa Góra runs west from it. Three streams flow down the three valleys between its three ridges: the Głęboki Potok (a tributary of the Ponikwa), the Mraźnica and the Wilkówka. The ridge carries the boundary between the villages of Wilkowice (south-western slopes) and Międzybrodzie Bialskie (north-eastern slopes); the Straconka valley separates it from Bielsko-Biała.

It is one of the most popular mountains of the Little Beskids: the summit clearing holds a PTTK mountain hut and a radio and TV transmitter, and an asphalt road leads up from Wilkowice.

How to get there / trails

A whole network of trails converges on Magurka (times from Polish Wikipedia):

• green — from Wilkowice Bystra station, 2 h 15 min; from Bielsko-Biała-Straconka via Hańderkula, 1 h 15 min;
• yellow — from Bielsko-Biała-Straconka, 2 h 15 min; from Międzybrodzie Bialskie, 2 h 30 min;
• blue — from Lipnik via the Przegibek pass, 3 h; from Czernichów, 2 h 15 min;
• red — from Bielsko-Biała Mikuszowice station, 2 h 15 min; from Cygański Las via Łysa Góra, 3 h 30 min;
• black — from Wilkowice via the Rogacz hut, about 1 h 50 min, or via Skała Czarownic, 2 h 50 min.

There is a car park by the hut. In winter ski trails run from the summit to the Łysa Przełęcz and Straconka and to the Przegibek pass, and a cross-country course with four loops, which met FIS requirements, is laid out on the slopes of Magurka and its neighbours; competitions such as "In the Footsteps of Archduchess Maria Theresa" are held here.

What you can see from the summit

The large clearing below the summit gives views of the Silesian, Little and Żywiec Beskids — including Babia Góra, Pilsko and Wielka Racza, as well as Barania Góra, Skrzyczne and Klimczok. The sloping roof of the cross-country ski centre building by the hut serves as a viewing terrace.

Nature and history

Shepherding once flourished on the upper ridge: as late as 1914 the ethnographer Ludomir Sawicki recorded a shepherds' hut on "Magórka" where three partners grazed 80 sheep. Grazing at this altitude later became uneconomic, and the old pastures are gradually returning to forest. Kazimierz Sosnowski called the mountain Magórka Łodygowska, while the German-speaking inhabitants of Bielsko and Biała called it Josefsberg, after a figure of St Joseph by a spring in the Magurka Straceńska hamlet.

The first hut was built by the Bielsko section of the German Beskidenverein and opened on 27 September 1903, but it burnt down only two years later. Rebuilt, it reopened on 18 August 1907 as the "Archduchess Maria Theresa Hut on Josefsberg"; it burnt again on 22 March 1912, and the present masonry building, opened on 19 October 1913, replaced it. A meteorological station was built next to it in 1908, and in winter a toboggan run descended from the summit to Straconka; during the occupation the Germans ran ski courses on the clearings and even built a small ski jump. Near Magurka, towards Czupel, the "Widok na Tatry" ("View of the Tatras") hut operated until 1967. On the summit clearing a small building with a niche holds an image of the Virgin Mary, and a mass is said here once a year.

Safety, season and rules

Magurka can be visited all year and its trails have no difficult sections. In winter ski and cross-country tracks run over the slopes — walkers should stay on the marked paths and not walk in the ski tracks. Because of the dense network of trails and forest roads it is easy to take a wrong turn in fog. Mountain rescue in the Little Beskids is provided by GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300, plus the general emergency number 112.

Photos: Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jendrusk, CC BY-SA 4.0; Ela Lesiak, CC BY-SA 3.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Dragon77S, CC BY 3.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.