Romanka

Romanka is a 1,366 m summit in the Żywiec Beskids, the highest of the Lipowski Wierch and Romanka group. It stands about 13–15 km south of Żywiec and 3.5–4 km from the Slovak border, in the communes of Jeleśnia and Węgierska Górka in Żywiec County, Silesian Voivodeship. The villages of Żabnica, Sopotnia Mała and Sopotnia Wielka lie below it. The height difference from the floor of the Soła valley near Cięcina and Wieprz (370–380 m) to the summit is almost 1,000 m, the largest around the Żywiec Basin.

The deep Pawlusia Pass (1,176 m) separates Romanka from neighbouring Rysianka. The mountain is a junction of two ridges: one runs north-west to Skała, the other north-east to Kotarnica. The valleys of three streams cut into its slopes — the Romanka (a tributary of the Żabniczanka), the Sopotnianka and the W Ciemnem stream. Kazimierz Sosnowski's guidebook described it thus: seen from Jeleśnia, Romanka is a bold, pointed cone, because the lower southern top hides behind the northern one, while from the Soła valley it looks like a long arched ridge with a dip; the southern top is 10 minutes' walk from the northern, and the western summit slope falls in wild rock cliffs containing a cave.

How to get there / trails

• Yellow trail from the Rysianka meadow via the Pawlusia Pass — about 1 h (55 min back).
• Blue trail from Bystra via Lachowe Młaki, the "Słowianka" mountain tourist station and Suchy Groń — 3 h 35 min (3 h back).
• From Sopotnia Mała via Kotarnica — 3 h 15 min (2 h 30 min back); Slovak sources mark this side as blue.
• From Sopotnia Wielka via Kotarnica — 2 h 50 min (2 h 15 min back).

A red trail from Żabnica via Abrahamów, Suchy Groń, Hala Wieprzska and the Pawlusia Pass to Rysianka contours the south-western slopes, bypassing the summit. The Papal Trail also crosses Romanka. The nearest mountain hut is on Rysianka.

The view from the top

The summit is covered by old, fairly dense upper-montane spruce forest, so there are no views from it. From open spots on the slopes you can see the surrounding Żywiec and Orava Beskids, the Oravská Magura, the Malá Fatra, and the Kysuce and Silesian Beskids.

Nature

Almost all of Romanka's slopes are forested — one of the larger forest complexes of the Żywiec Beskids. The summit almost reaches the natural tree line, and between the wars Sosnowski described the forest here as a "pauper forest" — stunted, half-dry, twisted and tangled, yet alive. This forest suffers badly from the weather: in the late 1960s large parts were destroyed by rime and heavy snowfall, and the weakened trees were then attacked by bark beetles. Lower down grow beech, fir, sycamore and rowan, with hazel, rock currant and red elder among the shrubs. Wolves, wild boar, red deer, lynx, capercaillie, badgers and even brown bears occur here.

Since 1963 the summit area has been protected by the Romanka nature reserve, created to preserve one of the last fragments of the Carpathian primeval forest; the massif also lies in the Żywiec Landscape Park. Centuries of settlement created pastoral clearings on the slopes — Hala Wieprzska, Hala Łyśniewska and smaller, now nameless ones. There are active landslides in the massif, and the cave at Sopotnia Wielka has passages totalling 101 m.

History

The name is old: it was already recorded by Andrzej Komoniecki (1658–1728), author of the "Chronography, or Żywiec Chronicle", and has always appeared on maps. Romanka was one of the first summits of the Żywiec Beskids to attract hikers. In 1894–1899 the German Beskidenverein marked a trail from Jeleśnia over Romanka to Węgierska Górka, and in 1913 or 1915 a ski shelter (Ski-Hütte) was built below the summit; it was destroyed at the end of the First World War. A triangulation tower once stood on the summit. During the Second World War partisans of the "Romanka" unit hid on its slopes; towards the end of the war they raided, among other things, the German officers' rest home in the Rysianka hut.

Safety, season and rules

Romanka is accessible all year, but the summit is wooded and featureless, so stay with the waymarks in fog. Do not leave the trail inside the reserve. In winter deep snow lies on the ridge.

Mountain rescue in the Beskids is provided by GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300, and 112.

Photos: Adrian Tync, CC BY-SA 4.0; Joa at Polish Wikipedia, Public domain; Jerzy Opioła, CC BY-SA 3.0; Krzysztof Popławski, CC BY 4.0; PPawel, CC BY-SA 3.0; Pudelek, CC BY-SA 3.0 — Wikimedia Commons.