--- title: "How we spent a restless night in the peaceful White Carpathians" description: "A report from a weekend crossing of the White Carpathians, spiced up by a night thunderstorm. It forced us to study properly how to behave in a storm next time. Tips in the article." canonical_url: "https://gramino.com/blog/restless-night-in-the-white-carpathians" last_updated: "2020-11-10" --- # How we spent a restless night in the peaceful White Carpathians Authors: Michaela Czempková Date: 2020-11-10 A report from a weekend crossing of the White Carpathians, spiced up by a night thunderstorm. It forced us to study properly how to behave in a storm next time. Tips in the article. Here's the thing – we're past the halfway mark of summer, and I hadn't seen my ultralight hiking friend Ančí in quite a while. When she calls and invites me to visit her in her home region of Zlín, I don't hesitate and say yes right away. She says she's come up with a weekend route through the heart of the White Carpathians, which will be even more beautiful in the coming autumn season. - **Route length:** 50 km - **Cumulative elevation gain:** 1,845 m - **Route link:** [mapy.cz/s/jorahokomu](https://mapy.cz/s/jorahokomu) It's Friday and I hop on the first of three trains. I get off in Brumov and walk a kilometer to the town square, where we're meeting. I recall Ančí saying something on the phone about a surprise. Some kind of treat or other little delicacy, I wonder. From a distance I already spot a little person with a [Montane Trailblazer](/p/montane-trailblazer-44-2024) backpack on the square, so I wave. After hugs and hellos, I get the explanation that I'll be in charge of Karel. Who's Karel? Ančí's parents' dog, who she takes on a proper walk once a year on this trek. Our pack consists of Ančí, Joplinka (dog no. 1), Karel (dog no. 2), and me. It's a bit past two in the afternoon and we head into the forest. [Montane Trailblazer 44 (2024)](/p/montane-trailblazer-44-2024.md) We've got about 14 km ahead of us to today's bivouac. We walk through a landscape that feels typically Czech – meadows, forests, little paths and cabins. The trail markers lead us up and down, though honestly mostly up. We cross the border between Czechia and Slovakia and arrive at a pilgrimage site by the little chapel of Panna Mária Kráľovná. There's a spring here and the option to camp. We've got our eye on a spot a few kilometers further on, though, so we keep going. The sun is already setting and we tackle the last 100 meters up and 300 meters down. We find ourselves deep in the forest, filling up water by headlamp light from a sorry trickle at a spring we'd scouted in advance. When we reach the bivouac, we discover it's already taken, and sadly go looking for somewhere to hide from the strong wind. We eye the porch of an empty cabin with some nerve. After a moment of pondering, Ančí and I nod in agreement – we'll just get up early in the morning and clear out. ## Saturday We wake up after a night sauna in our [Cumulus sleeping bags](/b/cumulus). We watch the sunrise and cook up the bare essentials with what's left of our water – coffee. We have to backtrack a few kilometers to get back onto the main red-marked trail. Starving and thirsty, we arrive back at the pilgrimage site we passed yesterday. At the beautiful spring we refill our water and have breakfast. We'll be following the red trail all day, as is typical for ridge crossings. Right at lunchtime we reach civilization. It's the half-Czech, half-Slovak village of Vlárský průsmyk. We exchange a few words with a man who turns out to be the owner of the local corner shop. He opens it just for us, so we gratefully grab everything we can get our hands on, because "hiker's hunger" shows no mercy. We're in the pass, so all that's left to do is climb again. With a full belly, it's tough going. It feels like an endless climb. Once we're back in the forest and on the ridge, our energy starts running out. We chip away at each kilometer, one at a time, toward the bivouac. All day we didn't meet even 5 people, and that's exactly what we wanted. - [Cumulus Lite Line 400](/p/cumulus-lite-line-400.md) - [Patizon G Quilt 350](/p/patizon-g-quilt-350.md) - [Cumulus Lite Line 300](/p/cumulus-lite-line-300.md) - [Cumulus Panyam 450](/p/cumulus-panyam-450.md) - [Cumulus Panyam 600](/p/cumulus-panyam-600.md) - [Cumulus Lite Line 200](/p/cumulus-lite-line-200.md) By the time we reach the bivouac, we're completely wiped out. We find a beautiful spot to sleep at the edge where forest meets meadow, with a view of both the sunset and the sunrise. We leave our backpacks here, packed with ultralight gear worth about as much as an older family car, and wade through the tall grass looking for the spring, which is strategically hidden beneath a hunting stand. Looking at the sky, we decide to pitch an improvised tarp just in case it starts pouring at night. While Ančí makes dinner, I fall asleep. In my sleep I hear Joplinka barking steadily and figure she must have caught the scent of some animal. After a while, though, we realize she was predicting a storm. At 10:30pm Ančí shakes me awake – it's really starting to rain, she says, so we'd better pack everything up and disappear into the forest, where we'd spotted a shelter. We light the way with our headlamps, and someone shines a light right back at us. Apparently someone else has taken the shelter again, but we're not taking no for an answer and head under the roof anyway. Slowly but surely, the craziest experience of the whole crossing begins. For 3 hours we find ourselves right in the epicenter of the storm. We sit motionless with the dogs in our arms and watch the show. Sometimes it cracks closer, sometimes farther away, but it always lights up the whole forest. It's an unbelievable experience, and I've never lived through anything like it. By 1am the storm and rain are retreating, and we're so tired we're nearly falling asleep sitting up. On my phone I can see the situation is only going to improve, so we work up the courage to roll out our sleeping pads and get out our sleeping bags. I'm a little envious of Ančí's new [inflatable sleeping pad](/c/sleep/sleeping-pads), since I'm lying down on the cheapest sleeping pad from Decathlon and arranging my body between the roots so they press into me as little as possible. ## Sunday We're up at 6am and keep moving – we'll catch up on sleep some other night. The first rays of sunshine filter through the trees, and the fog from the night's storm is slowly lifting. I feel like I'm in a National Geographic film, it really has an incredible magic to it. We stop for breakfast near a spring. We cook, eat, and try to fight off our sleep deficit the only way we know how – coffee. We've got the last 10 km to civilization ahead of us. We gradually shed layers of clothing and enjoy the nature for as long as we can. At the finish, we try to satisfy our untamed hiker hunger and buy out the local shop. It's hot again, and I've got several hours of travel home ahead of me. I say goodbye to Ančí, since we're each catching a different connection, and I go settle into the Slovácký expres train headed for Prague. On the way home I find myself thinking about how to properly behave in a thunderstorm. It seems to me that Ančí and I did everything we could that night. Still, there's always more you can do and better ways to be prepared. I set myself the homework of researching "how to behave in the forest during a thunderstorm," and here are a few tips that make sense to me. ## **5 tips for how to behave in a thunderstorm** - **Be ready for it to arrive:** have a reliable weather app. If I need to know how the rain situation will develop over the next few hours, I always check the "Meteoradar" app, where I can see a two-hour window of the clouds and rain moving in - **Where not to be:** in elevated spots, under lone trees, under low rock overhangs, or in small structures without a lightning rod. Near streams, waterlogged ground, and bodies of water. - **Where to be:** in dense forest, a grove, low vegetation, a dry ditch, or a narrow valley. - **Watch out for metal objects:** trekking poles, tent poles, a backpack with a metal frame, and other items should be placed at least 30 meters away from you. - **Position:** the safest position is a crouch with your feet and hands together – definitely don't lie down on the ground, the point is to minimize your contact area with the ground. You can also cover your ears to protect your hearing from the intense noise. A large group should spread out into individuals or pairs with 30-meter gaps between them. 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