Beautiful, Brutal, and Fun

We spent the past few days in Zakopane, hiking in the Tatra Mountains. We stayed at the Jesuit Retreat House (which was a beautiful building with a breathtaking view of the mountians). When we got there the tallest mountains were obscured by clouds. The guys asked me if we were climbing the ones we could see, I said "no, but do you see the HUGE thing going up into the clouds? I think we are climbing that one." Sure enough, yesterday we climbed that very mountain and the "hike" lasted over 11 hours. The total horizontal distance was between 8 and 9 miles but that included 5 mountain peaks, two of which were over 6000 feet. We had to use chains at times to get up the steepest slopes. It was beautiful, brutal, and fun. I will post again about this trip, with more pictures, but I will just state for now that we all finished the hike healthy, happy, and not wanting to do it again for a long time.