Watrisko

Watrisko is a rocky 960 m summit in the Small Pieniny (Małe Pieniny), the eastern part of the Pieniny range. It stands between Smerekowa and Wierchliczka but, unlike them, it is not on the main ridge: it lies about 150 m north of it, entirely in Poland. Administratively it belongs to the village of Jaworki (Szczawnica municipality, Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship). The hamlet of Kornaje is about 2 km away, the centre of Jaworki 3.1 km and the Slovak village of Litmanová 3.5 km. Wierchliczka is less than a kilometre to the east, and Wysokie Skałki, the highest summit of the Pieniny, about 1.8 km to the west.

A small side ridge with the tops of Góra Repowa and Skalskie runs north-west from Watrisko; the massif is drained by the Skalski Potok and Zimna Studnia streams. The eastern and northern slopes are wooded, while on the west the summit ends in an almost vertical limestone wall 20–30 m high, a white patch easily seen from the surrounding pastures.

How to get there / routes

The main ridge of the Small Pieniny carries the blue-marked trail (Tarnów – Wielki Rogacz): from the Pieniny Road via Szafranówka, Łaźne Skały, Cyrhle, Wysoki Wierch, Durbaszka, Wysoka and Wierchliczka to the Rozdziela pass and Przełęcz Gromadzka in the Sądecki Beskids. It does not cross the summit itself but passes east of it through a saddle in the main ridge, from which the top is only a few minutes' walk away. According to OSM, the Slovak long-distance route Via Slovakia follows the same ridge. The nearest starting points are Jaworki and the Biała Woda valley; from the Rozdziela pass (803 m), 1.7 km to the east, a yellow trail climbs to the ridge from Jaworki.

The view from the summit

The rocky top looks out over the Pieniny, the Tatras and the wooded valley below with the Zaskalskie-Bodnarówka nature reserve. A pleasant glade just north of the summit offers a wide panorama; Polish sources note that it is being artificially afforested, so the views may narrow over the years.

Nature and history

The glade below Watrisko is a remnant of the fields of the vanished village of Biała Woda. From the second half of the 14th century Vlach herders grazed these hills; later a village under Vlach law grew up here, whose Rusyn (Lemko) inhabitants lived from herding and gradually cleared the forest for fields. Biała Woda was known for its tinkers, who mended clay pots with wire and travelled with their trade as far as Warsaw and Kyiv. In 1931 the village had 110 farms and 494 inhabitants. In 1947, during Operation Vistula, the people were deported and the houses burned; only one house in the former hamlet of Kornaje and a small masonry chapel at the entrance to the reserve survived.

Today the former fields are used for "cultural grazing" of sheep and cattle. The Biała Woda landscape reserve was created in the stream valley in 1963, and since 1961 the 19-hectare Zaskalskie-Bodnarówka reserve has protected the forest and warmth-loving vegetation on the limestone rocks of the Skalski Potok valley below Watrisko; eagle owls nest in its woods. There is no marked trail through it, and walking through requires permission from the Krościenko forest district.

Safety, season and rules

Watrisko lies outside the Pieniny National Park, so access is free, but the rules of the nature reserves and of the Natura 2000 site "Małe Pieniny" apply: do not cut across protected areas and keep away from the edge of the rock wall. The open pastures of the Small Pieniny offer no shelter from wind and thunderstorms, and in fog it is easy to lose the waymarks. The ridge can be walked all year; in winter you often have to break trail.

The Pieniny are covered by the mountain rescue service GOPR (Podhale group): call 985 or +48 601 100 300, or 112; installing the "Ratunek" app is a good idea. Across the border, on the Slovak side of the ridge, call HZS on 18 300 (+421 18 300) or 112.

Interesting facts

• Polish sources give three different heights for Watrisko: 960, 974 and 977 m.
• From the pastures above Biała Woda you can see the Pieniny, the Tatras, the Sądecki Beskids, the Gorce and the Slovak mountains.

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