Eastern Europe -- Tatra Mountains Are Antidote To The Alps

It may seem difficult to believe, what with all the attention given to its blighted cities, but Eastern Europe - yes, that drab world of cabbages and coal dust - actually possesses a great outdoors.

It's called the Tatra mountains, and while they doesn't possess the imposing scale or the Gallic sheen of the European Alps to the west, it's still wilder than one might expect.

"It was all a surprise to me," says Geri Lobello, a sixth-grade teacher from Lockport, Ill., who visited the Tatras last year. "I knew there were Polish hillsides, but I thought of them as just little hills . . .

"These were mountains and they were just as beautiful as the Alps, though in a different way."

That difference is why the Tatras have their charm. Where the Alps are snowy giants much of the year, the Tatras are smaller, greener, more accessible.

Where the Alps are populated by ski resorts and cable cars, the Tatras are dotted with farms and horse-and-cart villages. Where the Alps cover much of western Europe, the Tatras take up only a few hundred square miles.

If the Alps are Europe's version of the high Rockies, then the Tatras are a steeper, more dramatic version of the Appalachians - small, cozy and filled with real people.

"When we were in France, all the people on the mountains were wearing designer climbing clothes," says Lobello. "When we got to the Tatras, we saw nuns in habits, kids and families on vacations. It was a welcome sight."

The Tatras, an outcropping of the Carpathian Mountains that lies along the border of Poland and and the Slovak Republic (formerly part of Czechoslovakia) have long been a home to black bears, mountain goats, wolves and other pleasure-seekers, including Lenin (who climbed Poland's Mount Rysy in 1913) and Pope John Paul II, who in 1983 bunked at the now-famous Chocholowska Lodge.

But for everybody else, it's probably best to begin seeing the Tatras from the Polish town of Zakopane, which is a day's drive or train ride from Warsaw and which has been called, with some exaggeration, "the Aspen of Poland."

From the gabled homes of Zakopane, the willing visitor can make day trips on any of the trails that lead into the Tatras' signature granite and limestone spires, one of the finer routes being the one that leads to the cross atop Mount Giewont.

At a relatively low 5,900 feet, Giewont provides a nearly unmatchable panorama of the mountain range and the town below, provided, of course, that one is not too unnerved by the occasional shrines built to commemorate unwary hikers.

For longer trips, there's a 350-mile trail system dotted with mountain huts that make it possible to make multi-day outings while carrying not much more than a knapsack.

Just as beautiful but a bit easier to reach are the glacial-blue waters of Morskie Oko Lake, which lies a short bus ride from Zakopane.

Take the stone path around the lake (about an hour's stroll) or climb half-an-hour to the less peopled shores of Czarny Staw Lake.

The more ambitious, of course, can always follow in Lenin's tracks up 7,700-foot Mount Rysy, the highest point in the Polish Tatras. The climb isn't technical, but it's best to wait until late summer when the snow is gone from the summit.

Melted snow can also profit the visitor in other ways; namely by feeding the Dunajec River, which courses to the east of Zakopane and where each June thousands of European rafters and kayakers gather to compete.

This isn't whitewater in the Grand Canyon sense of the word (indeed, the frame pontoon boats look as if they couldn't survive it), but the 20-mile run from Czorsztyn to Kroscienko is a fine way to see the small town life along the river, as well as a good way to ogle the mansions once used by Communist Party officials.

In the Tatras within the Slovak Republic, the mountain huts are better-appointed than their Polish counterparts (in some cases containing private showers, a luxury rarely found in the Alps).

The 8,200-foot Gerlachovski Stit, the highest peak in the Tatras, also is found there. Reaching the summit requires around nine hours and a mountain guide, the former by virtue of its steepness, the latter by virtue of strict government regulations.

Whatever side of the Tatras you choose, some things are the same. Prices are low (a two-person dinner, with wine, runs around $8), the weather can quickly turn wintry (all the more reason to hire an experienced guide), and regulations are strict, especially those that prohibit hikers from wandering off the clearly marked trails.

For Americans accustomed to going where they want to go, it all may seem a bit much. But when one compares the decrepit state of some of our national parks to the sparkling condition of the Tatras, it's clear that where wilderness is concerned, maybe a little regulation isn't necessarily a bad thing. --------------------------------------------------------------- MORE INFORMATION

Some outfitters offer trips to the Tatras. Among those to check are:

-- Above the Clouds Trekking, P.O. Box 398, Worcester, MA 01602; 1-800-233-4499.

-- InnerAsia Expeditions, 2627 Lombard, San Francisco, CA 94123; 1-415-922-0448.

-- Mountain Travel-Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito, CA 94530-3606; 1-800-227-2384.

-- Tatra Mountain Recreation, 12 Dover Road, P.O. Box 757, New Britain, CO 06050; 1-203-229-8481.