Pipitka

Pipitka (Hungarian Pipityke) is a 1225 m summit in the Volovské vrchy, part of the Slovak Ore Mountains. It is the highest point of its geomorphological subunit, which is named after it. The mountain rises above the village of Úhorná (about 2.4 km), some 9 km east of Rožňava, in the Košice Region; the summit lies on the lands of Drnava and partly Úhorná and Smolník. Other nearby villages are Pača (about 5 km), Drnava (5 km) and Kováčová (5 km). According to Hungarian sources it is the summit over 1200 m closest to Hungary: the border is only about 12 km away.

Pipitka lies on the ridge that runs south from Zlatý stôl over the Úhornianske sedlo saddle (999 m) and then south-east to Osadník (1186 m); it is just under 3 km from the saddle. To the north stand Biele skaly (1252 m) and Hekerová (1260 m), to the east Orlia studňa (1103 m) and Osadník, to the west Malá Pipitka (1087 m). Water from the northern and eastern slopes flows via the Smolník stream to the Hnilec, while the southern slopes drain through tributaries of the Čremošná into the Slaná basin.

How to get there / routes

No marked trail leads to the summit itself. Close by, on the northern slope, the red trail – the Slovak National Uprising Heroes' Trail (part of the European path E8) – traverses the mountain:

• From the north-west – from Skalisko via the Úhornianske sedlo.
• From the east – from the Bodovka junction via Orlia studňa.
• A green trail reaches the Úhornianske sedlo from Pača in the west and from Úhorná in the north.

Hungarian authors consider Drnava the easiest approach. The sources give no official walking times, and the last stretch to the summit is unmarked – take a detailed map.

What you can see from the top

The summit is covered by sparse, broken woodland, so views open from individual spots. You can see other parts of the Volovské vrchy and, in good weather, the Tatras, the Slanské vrchy, the Slovak Karst, the Revúca Highlands, the Stolica Mountains and the Low Tatras. The boulder field below the summit gives a superb view of the Rožňava basin and the karst plateaus of the Slovak-Hungarian Karst.

Nature and history

Pipitka is built of old crystalline rocks that emerge in places as rock ledges and walls, and on the southern slopes below the summit form a large boulder field. The slopes are fairly steep, stony in places and cut by the valleys of many streams. The massif is almost entirely forested – beech lower down, spruce higher up. The summit was once cleared by intensive grazing but became forested again during the 20th century. In the early 21st century the spruce stands, weakened by bark beetle, were badly hit by windthrow.

From the 18th century the massif was an area of intensive mining: numerous small mines on the lands of Krásnohorské Podhradie and Drnava extracted iron ore until the mid-20th century. Their traces – adits and spoil heaps – are clearly visible on the south-western and southern slopes.

Safety, season and rules

Pipitka is a wooded mid-mountain summit accessible all year, but off the marked trail it is easy to lose your way, and old adits and spoil heaps are dangerous – do not enter them. Windthrow can leave fallen trees across paths. Slovak Mountain Rescue Service (HZS): 18 300 (+421 18 300) or 112.

Interesting facts

• Pipitka already appears in the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland of 1887.
• A whole subunit of the Volovské vrchy is named after the mountain.
• The Hungarian border is only about 12 km from the summit.

Photos: SanoAK: Alexander Kürthy, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.