The Mountain Tourist Badge

I began hiking in the mountains a very, very long time ago — back in the 1960s. To this day I still remember rafting through the Dunajec River Gorge and climbing Trzy Korony (“Three Crowns”), one of the best-known peaks in the Pieniny Mountains of southern Poland. I was only a small child then, and other tourists were surprised that such a little fellow managed the climb.

In those days, during the communist era in Poland (the PRL period), family holidays were often organized in a modest and practical way. We usually stayed “na kwaterach” — at private rooms rented by local families — and from there made day trips into the surrounding hills and mountains.

While staying in the spa town of Muszyna, we climbed Pusta Wielka (1,061 m), where there stood a wooden triangulation tower that later collapsed. When we reached the summit, my father surprised us by producing a bar of chocolate. That may sound ordinary today, but in Poland of those years chocolate was not something taken for granted, so it felt like a true reward.

When we stayed in Rabka, we often hiked up nearby Grzebień Hill (677 m), whose bands of forest looked like the teeth of a comb (and thus the name, Comb Hill), and Bania (612 m). One day we even climbed Luboń Wielki (1,022 m) — in winter. At the top stood a mountain hut and a radio-television transmission station. We came back after dark, which was no small challenge.

Over time, these short outings turned into multi-week mountain expeditions. For many years I hiked intensively through the Polish Carpathians carrying a backpack that sometimes weighed as much as 30 kilograms (66 pounds), much of it food and supplies-it was the reality of life in Poland then. We travelled from summit to summit, from mountain hut to mountain hut, and from town to town.

Hiking in the Beskid Mountains, 1977

We spent nights either in mountain shelters (a.k.a. mountain lodges, hostels, huts or chalets), mountain refuges or in private homes in villages and small towns — and people often refused payment. On mountain pastures we sometimes stopped in shepherds’ huts called bacówki, where a fire burned in the middle and cheeses hung from the rafters, slowly smoking into the famous Highlander cheese known as oscypek. We bought that cheese together with żętyca (also called zyntyca), a traditional whey drink produced during cheesemaking.

Even then I kept something like travel journals. I carefully recorded our routes, described each trip, pasted in postcards, and collected stamps from mountain huts. Sadly, all those notebooks disappeared because of one family member.

Quite early on, I became interested in combining pleasure with purpose — by earning the Mountain Tourist Badge (Górska Odznaka Turystyczna, or GOT), awarded by PTTK, the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society. I bought the official rulebook and badge booklet, which listed how many points were awarded for particular hiking routes. The number of points depended on distance, elevation gain, difficulty, direction of travel, and other factors.

To prove that you had completed a route, you had to keep a hiking logbook and collect official stamps from mountain huts, town offices, shops, or other places along the trail. Once you had enough points, you submitted your application and attended a verification meeting.

Usually this was a friendly conversation with an experienced PTTK volunteer (przodownik PTTK) who knew the mountain trails well. I still remember the name of the exceptionally kind gentleman who “examined” me: Tadeusz Gurbiel.

Tadeusz Gurbiel

Years later I looked him up and discovered that he had lived an extraordinary life. Tadeusz Gurbiel “Góra” (1908–1993) had been a soldier of the Polish Home Army during the Second World War and a participant in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation. He fought in fierce battles in the Wola district, then in the Old Town, and later escaped through Warsaw’s sewers to the city centre with other insurgents — one of the most dramatic episodes of the uprising. For bravery he was awarded the Cross of Valour. After the fall of the uprising he became a German prisoner of war and did not return to Poland until 1947.

Tadeusz Gurbiel's memorial plaque in Warsaw’s PTTK Pantheon.

After the war he devoted himself to mountain tourism and became one of the respected figures of PTTK. He held several important positions in Warsaw’s mountain tourism commissions, but what matters most to me is that he spent years verifying hikers’ logbooks and approving earned GOT badges. In other words, this war veteran and former POW was the man who confirmed the achievements of young hikers like me. After his death he was honoured with a memorial plaque in Warsaw’s PTTK Pantheon.

By 1977 — or perhaps even 1976 — when I was only fourteen or fifteen years old, I had managed to earn four GOT levels: Popular, Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

I should add that for many years I have felt little attraction to medals, decorations, or official honours. Perhaps that is partly a reaction to communist countries, where politicians, military officers (especially Soviet), miners, and various officials were often covered in awards like Christmas trees, which tended to cheapen their meaning.

Yet I value these four modest hiking badges very highly, because I truly earned them myself. No one granted them to me by bureaucratic decree. They symbolize youth, effort, independence, unforgettable journeys, and wonderful memories.

They also left me with many metal hiking badges and souvenirs, whose photographs I hope to post here in future entries, together with descriptions of old routes and mountain adventures.

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Finally, one telling story. A schoolmate of mine also hiked in the mountains, but he had not yet earned the Gold GOT badge and was clearly jealous of mine. He questioned me about how and when I had earned the badges — not because he wanted to learn interesting routes, but because he hoped to undermine my achievements.

Around the same time, our class was preparing a school trip project (which was never realized), and my role was to design several mountain hiking routes. After my presentation I was surprised by his angry reaction and personal attack. He could not tolerate someone else speaking in an area he considered his private domain.

I thought about those incidents for a long time, with both surprise and sympathy. Eventually I understood that such behaviour often comes from insecurity and low self-esteem — something that became evident in other situations later. Fortunately, in the following years our relationship returned to normal, and those episodes faded into the past.

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