Czuprana

Czuprana (also Cupryna) is the lower of the two summits of the Jarmuta massif in the Little Pieniny, 777 m high. It is separated from the main summit, Jarmuta (794 m) to the east, by the Matwijowa pass (763 m); the two tops are only about 370 m apart in a straight line. Czuprana lies within the village of Szlachtowa in Gmina Szczawnica, Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship; the centre of Szlachtowa is just over a kilometre away, the spa town of Szczawnica and the village of Jaworki about 3 km.

The south-eastern slopes drop into the valley of the Palkowski Potok, the northern ones into the Grajcarek valley. The Jarmuta massif stands well apart from its neighbours: it lies north of the main ridge of the Little Pieniny and is joined to Cyrhla by the Klimontowska pass (696 m). The mountain lies outside the Pieniny National Park.

How to get there / routes

No marked hiking trails lead to Czuprana, but it can be climbed on forest roads and paths from all the surrounding villages. According to OpenStreetMap, an unmarked path to Jarmuta passes near the summit. The most convenient starting points are Szlachtowa and Szczawnica. Neighbouring Jarmuta, with the Andrzejówka clearing on its top, is described as a good viewpoint, especially towards the Radziejowa range of the Sądecki Beskids, so the two summits combine well into one walk.

What you can see from the top

Czuprana is almost entirely forested, so there is no panorama from the summit. The Czuprana–Jarmuta pair is easy to recognise from afar, though: since 1963 a TV transmitter has stood on Jarmuta, visible from many places in the Grajcarek valley and from the ridges of the Little Pieniny.

Nature and geology

The mountain is covered mainly by fir and spruce forest with some beech. The Jarmuta massif belongs to the Pieniny Klippen Belt: it is built of Jurassic and Cretaceous shales, limestones and radiolarites, as well as sandstones and conglomerates of the so-called Jarmuta Formation. Its special feature is Miocene Pieniny andesite, which occurs as sill-like intrusions. Until the 1970s it was quarried on the northern slopes of Czuprana; a vertical wall of bare rock is still visible at the foot. In 2016 the rare, protected moss Andreaea rupestris was found on the mountain.

The "Bania w Jarmucie" silver adits

Low on the eastern slopes of Czuprana, above the Palkowski Potok valley, the adits of an old silver mine survive. Tales of treasure here are old; in the 18th century the owner of the Szlachtowa estates, Prince Paweł Karol Sanguszko, brought mining experts from Hungary and founded a mining and smelting enterprise. In 1732–1739 several dozen metres of adits were cut into the rock, miners came from Spiš and Saxony, and a smelting furnace was built in Szlachtowa. The smelt of 1739 failed, the ore held very little silver and the venture went bankrupt. Today the adits total about 110 m of passages and reach about 14 m deep; in 1995 the entrance was closed with iron bars. It is the second most important bat hibernation site in the Polish Pieniny: up to 30 bats of seven species winter here, mostly lesser horseshoe bats. In 1997 the Szczawnica municipal council declared the 0.1 ha ecological site "Sztolnie na górze Jarmuta".

The name is derived from the Tatar word "czubryna", a tuft of hair on the crown of a shaven head.

Safety, season and rules

This is a low wooded hill; without marked trails it is easy to lose your way, so carry an offline map. Do not enter the old adits: they are closed, dangerous and protected for the bats. Mountain rescue – GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300; general emergency number 112.

Photos: Jerzy Opioła, CC BY 2.5; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 3.0; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.