Why Kriváň Is the Worst (and Best) Mountain in the Tatras – or How I Peed Myself Laughing in the Grass

You know that feeling when you look at a photo of a mountain and think, “Wow, what a beautiful, majestic shape! I have to climb that!”?

That’s exactly how Kriváň (2,494 m above sea level) got me. That famous, characteristically curved Slovak national icon. These days, I know that its crooked summit isn’t a symbol of grandeur at all, but a warning sign telling you in advance: “If you climb me, I’ll bend your back and legs into a right angle.”

For me personally, Kriváň is officially the worst mountain in the world. Not because it isn’t beautiful, but because no other hike has ever left my legs quite this destroyed.

Slovaks hold Kriváň in such high regard that you can even find it depicted on their five-cent euro coins, and it was once featured on the national coat of arms. According to an old folk legend, an angel was flying past and became so enchanted by the beauty of the Tatras that he accidentally clipped the summit with his wing, bending the mountain into its distinctive shape. But the real hype around Kriváň began in 1841, when the Štúrovci – Slovak patriots and followers of Ľudovít Štúr – organised a mass national ascent.

Where Do You Actually Start the Hike to Kriváň? (If You Want to Risk It Too)

If you want to test the limits of your muscles, there are two main starting points:

• Tri Studničky (green → blue trail): This is the slightly shorter route (around 4.5 hours to the summit), but it’s steep almost from the very beginning. The total elevation gain is around 1,350 metres.
• Štrbské Pleso (red → blue trail): This route takes you around the lake. It’s a little more gradual, but also longer, covering more than 19 kilometres in total there and back. Endless level: two.

The Reality of the Hike: Endless Trails, Rocks and an Empty Stomach

If you’re used to being rescued halfway up a Tatra mountain by a cosy mountain hut serving a cold glass of Kofola and a bowl of hot soup, forget about it on Kriváň. There is absolutely nothing along this route. No mountain hut, no shelter, no civilisation. You need to carry every snack and every litre of water you’ll need in your backpack.

The climb is a test of mental endurance. The trail simply feels endless. It starts innocently enough in the forest, continues through dwarf mountain pine and eventually turns into scrambling on all fours over steep, slippery rocks.

I remember one time having my leg up on a rock right next to my head. I have no idea how I even managed to get it there – I guess my ballet background finally came in handy :D.

And just when you think you’ve finally made it, you discover that it’s only the false summit, Daxner’s Saddle, and the real hell is still ahead.

When you finally make it to the top, you sit right on the edge of the rock, your legs dangling over the void, and suddenly a view opens up beneath you that literally leaves you paralysed. The sheer mountainside drops away beneath your feet into the wild Tatra valleys.

Before me stretched an incredible, raw panorama of the entire Liptov region, the ridges of the Western Tatras and wild mountain lakes that, from that height, looked like tiny blue jewels scattered across the grey scree.

The air up there was so incredibly clear that the sheer depth and space beneath me actually made my head spin. That unbelievable contrast between the massive, solid rock beneath you and the endless sense of freedom and lightness stretching out in front of you is impossible to describe.

Sitting there on the edge of that abyss, I suddenly realised that the most beautiful things in life simply cannot be bought. You have to earn them – painfully, with every fibre of your being. The mountain I had genuinely hated just five minutes earlier had suddenly become the most beautiful place on Earth.

The Massive Traditional Wooden Double Cross

The moment you see it, you know you’ve made it. You don’t have to take another single step up that cursed mountain.

The cross at the summit of Kriváň isn’t just an ordinary hiking marker. It’s a Slovak national symbol, featuring two horizontal beams – the so-called double cross, or Lorraine/Byzantine cross. For Slovaks, it is almost a sacred place.

The first crosses and memorial plaques were erected here by Slovak patriots back in the 19th century. Over the years, the harsh Tatra weather, violent winds and lightning have destroyed and damaged them several times. But people from the villages beneath the Tatras have always proudly carried a new tree trunk up the mountain and put up another one.

Around the cross, dozens of equally exhausted hikers are sitting or lying on the rocks. Nobody is talking loudly. Everyone is simply sitting quietly, chewing on a snack and staring into the enormous void below.

That wooden cross stands up there as a silent witness to both human suffering and triumph. It somehow connects all the miners who came here in the 15th century to dig for gold in winter, the Slovak national revivalists in their formal suits, and me – completely wrecked and still unaware that on the way down, I would end up peeing myself laughing in the grass.

The Way Down: Pure Purgatory

If the way up felt endless, the way down was pure purgatory.

After several hours of constantly braking my descent, my legs simply stopped working. You know that state when your muscles are so completely done that your knees start shaking uncontrollably and you can barely control them?

After the successful – but utterly exhausting – descent, something happened in the safe zone at the bottom that I will never forget.

My legs somehow got tangled up with each other. My brain sent the signal “walk straight,” but my exhausted limbs decided to tie themselves into a knot instead, and I went down sideways, flat on my back, straight into the grass.

I was so unbelievably, intergalactically exhausted that it completely broke me. I started laughing so hard that, thanks to my total muscle fatigue, I couldn’t even make a sound.

It was the strangest laughing fit ever – directed entirely inward. My whole body was shaking, tears were streaming down my face, but not a single sound came out because my lungs simply refused to cooperate.

And then, to top it all off, I actually peed myself!

There I was, lying in the grass, unable to move, completely silent and slightly soaked, but honestly incredibly happy that I had survived.

The Verdict

Kriváň absolutely destroyed me, but these days, whenever I look at a photo of it, I can’t help smiling.

The views from the summit and the feeling of having pushed your own body beyond its limits are simply worth all the suffering. Just make sure that, along with plenty of food, you also pack a spare pair of underwear. You never know.

Do you have a mountain that completely destroyed your legs like this? Tell me about it in the comments!