Especially Izera dark sky park located west of Karkonosze mountains, which is one among the few places in Europe, where more than thousands of stars are seen in the night sky.
The building on top of Snieszka is pretty attractive with its round alien shape. The building is a Meteo geological observatory. The nearest town to the spot is Karpacz in side of Poland.
We reached Karpacz in an afternoon. Despite the weather was so bad for last couple of days, that after noon seems to be quiet like summer. We have expected a heavy snow and rains. We stayed at the town for the night and decided to hike to the top next day morning. The town was so lively in the evening. As the sun set under the mountains, it has started getting a bit colder. The streets are busy with tourists. It’s also a fine skiing destination.
The town is packed with fine traditional restaurants, bars and brewers. There were shops selling hot wine and cakes every corner of the streets. As the nights get darker it got colder and there were light snowing and winds. I looked at the sky, even from the town the sky was clearly visible there were less light pollution. The next day is gonna be New Moon, a perfect time for watching the night sky. I walked a bit far from the town to get some fine images of Orion. Because mountain weather is tricky and you may not get another chance for it tomorrow.
The light pollution from the street lights were a little bit annoying but the Orion was just above the mountain ridges hence it didn’t affect much. The cold numbness were crawling through my hands, it’s pretty cold around 4 degrees. I went back to rest after taking few pictures.
We hiked to top of the mountain. The weather was very nice and warm even the trails were covered by snows from last couple of days.
We watched the majestic sunset over the vast unending mountain ridges covered in the snow and clouds. Even if the oceans were nowhere closer, i felt like there is an ocean behind the mountains and islands of mountain tops were floating over here and there.
Again as the Sun went down, the cold winds started blowing gently and stars has started appearing in the sky.
The snow trails were glowing in the star light. Even if there were no Moon, the trails were visible. We slowly hike down gazing at the stars. We see every thing happening up there. The long tapestry of Milky way , dots connecting beautiful shapes into constellations, satellites moving all the time from different directions and eye catching meteor showers. I felt so fortunate to be there at that time.
As we walked down through the path of sky and ended up in Czech. A shortcut put us back on track to reach the town of Karpacz. One thing was bothering me, I didn’t capture any images of this nights sky. The time was worth enjoying it looking and awing. Even the cold was piercing through the bones and legs are crumbling and tired. I wish to stay there on that trail till the light calls back all the stars. I will definitely come back here for that beautiful night under the starlight. The stars set under the mountains as we walked down town. The civilization took over the minds and we are back on the ground.