Tatra Mountain Guide Centre Zakopane
Usługi przewodnickie
ul. Chałubińskiego 42a, 34-500 Zakopane
Tourist region: Tatry i Podhale
Although some claim that Tatra mountain guiding is older than the Tatras, the truth is somewhat different.... Its roots go back to at least the 16th century. Following the example of the Hungarian Carpathian Society, the General Board of the Tatra Society (TT) gave an organisational framework to guide affairs in 1875, and in 1877, a list of guides was published including details about where they could work and the salaries they earned. 'First class' guides included: Jędrzej Wala (father), Maciej Sieczka, Szymon Tatar senior, Wojciech Roja and Jędrzej Wala (son). In the following years, as a result of the growing tourist movement, the number of guides increased (from 31 in 1886 to 58 in 1900), with Klemens Bachleda, the informal king of guides, coming to the fore until his tragic death during a rescue operation in 1910.
Several centuries of tradition and the 21st century impose an obligation to adapt Tatra guiding to new, world standards, and in 1999 an independent guiding association called: Tatra Mountain Guide Centre (CPT) based in Zakopane. The association is made up of the entities of the Tatra mountain guide circles in: Zakopane (Klemens Bachleda Tatra Mountain Guides Association, Tatra Mountain Guides Circle at OT PTTK, High Tatra Mountain Guides Association), Kraków (Tatra Mountain Guides Academic Circle named after Zofia and Witold Paryski at OA PTTK, Tatra Mountain Guides Circle named after Maciej Sieczka at PTTK Kraków), Gliwice (Tatra Mountain Guides Circle named after Tadeusz Szczerba at PTTK Gliwice) and Katowice (Tatra Mountain Guides Circle named after Janusz Chmielowski at PTTK Katowice). The CPT's most important tasks are training, examining, and coordinating the activity of Tatra guiding, ensuring the highest possible professional and ethical level of guides, cooperating with national parks, state and local administration offices, and cooperating with other guiding organisations in the country and abroad. When going to the Tatra Mountains or the Podtatrze region, including Spis, Orava, Podhale and Pieniny, it is worth using the services of authorised Tatra mountain tourist guides. Depending on the difficulty of the route and tour, this can be a class I (the highest guiding class), II or III guide. Why with a guide? Because it is safer and more interesting. The guide will adapt the route, assess potential dangers, ensure safety, and provide a compendium of knowledge about the area visited, the rules of behaviour in the mountains, and ecology. Tatra guides offer tours on the trails of the Polish and Slovak Tatra Mountains, summer and winter climbing (in rock and ice), bus tours in the Polish and Slovak Podtatrze, the Pieniny and the Dunajec rafting, thematic tours (nature, history, ethnography) and educational tours, mountains of Slovakia (e.g., Slovak mountains (e.g., Wielka and Mała Fatra, Nízke Tatry, Chočské vrchy, Slovenský raj), Tatra alpine tours (e.g., Mt Mnich, Mięguszowieckie Peaks, Kościelce Ridge), the most 'honoured' mountains in the Tatras (e.g., Mt Gerlach, Mt Łomnica, Mt Lodowy, Mt Wysoka), ski touring, freeriding, snowshoeing, ski touring, climbing and avalanche training.
