The tripto catalogue lists 121 mountains and peaks – from Tatra summits with chains to rounded Beskid tops with viewing towers that you can climb with children.
Rysy (2,499 m) is the highest point in Poland; the trail from Morskie Oko past Czarny Staw ends with a chained section and takes a full day. Giewont above Zakopane rewards you with a view of the Tatras, but its rocky top section is also secured with chains. Babia Góra with Diablak (1,725 m) is the highest peak of the Western Beskids and is known for changeable weather. A steel viewing tower opened on Śnieżnik (1,425 m) in 2022, and on a clear day you can see the Alps from there. Trzy Korony in the Pieniny has a platform on Okrąglica overlooking the Dunajec gorge, and 680 stone steps lead up Szczeliniec Wielki in the Table Mountains.
Most peaks in the catalogue are in the Silesian region (more than 40, mainly in the Silesian and Żywiec Beskids), Lesser Poland (more than 30) and Lower Silesia (more than 25). Zakopane, Wisła and Szczyrk make good bases.
In practice: allow 3.5 to 5 hours for the ascent and descent, and 8–10 for Rysy. The Tatra National Park charges an entry fee (11 zł per day, reduced 5.50 zł), and the Palenica car park must be booked in advance. The best season is June to October; in winter the higher sections require equipment and experience. With children, pick gentle peaks with a chairlift, such as Czantoria.
Mountains & peaks
Brzegi
Rysy (pronounced RIH-sih) is the highest mountain in Poland: its northwest summit, on the Polish–Slovak border in the High Tatras, rises to about 2,499 meters (8,199 ft). The classic hike from Palenica Białczańska past the famous Morskie O…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
You can hardly miss it from the centre of Zakopane: the limestone massif of Giewont rises above the town in an almost vertical 600-metre wall, and for generations its outline has been compared to a sleeping knight. On Wielki Giewont (1,895…
Mountains & peaks
Zawoja
It has long been called the Mother of Bad Weather – and for good reason: on the dome of Diablak, sunshine can give way to fog and gale within an hour. Babia Góra is the highest peak of the Western Beskids and, outside the Tatras, the highe…
Mountains & peaks
gmina Stronie Śląskie
On 2 January 2020 the Austrian Alps — the peaks of Schneeberg and Heukuppe, almost 290 km away — were photographed from the summit of Śnieżnik. At the time it was the longest-distance view ever recorded in Poland. Śnieżnik (1,425 m), the h…
Mountains & peaks
Sromowce Niżne
Trzy Korony (say "tshih koh-ROH-nih"), meaning "Three Crowns," is the most famous peak of the Pieniny Mountains on the Polish–Slovak border. From the railed viewing platform on its highest crag, Okrąglica (982 m / 3,222 ft), you look strai…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Karłów
A trapezoid block of rock covered in forest, visible from around Kłodzko and from Náchod in the Czech Republic — this is Szczeliniec Wielki, the highest peak of the Table Mountains. 680 stone steps lead up to the plateau, where a labyrinth…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
You can hardly miss it from the centre of Zakopane: the limestone massif of Giewont rises above the town in an almost vertical 600-metre wall, and for generations its outline has been compared to a sleeping knight. On Wielki Giewont (1,895…
Mountains & peaks
Brzegi
Rysy (pronounced RIH-sih) is the highest mountain in Poland: its northwest summit, on the Polish–Slovak border in the High Tatras, rises to about 2,499 meters (8,199 ft). The classic hike from Palenica Białczańska past the famous Morskie O…
Mountains & peaks
Zawoja
It has long been called the Mother of Bad Weather – and for good reason: on the dome of Diablak, sunshine can give way to fog and gale within an hour. Babia Góra is the highest peak of the Western Beskids and, outside the Tatras, the highe…
Mountains & peaks
gmina Stronie Śląskie
On 2 January 2020 the Austrian Alps — the peaks of Schneeberg and Heukuppe, almost 290 km away — were photographed from the summit of Śnieżnik. At the time it was the longest-distance view ever recorded in Poland. Śnieżnik (1,425 m), the h…
Mountains & peaks
Tarnowskie Góry
The Historic Silver Mine in Tarnowskie Góry (say "tar-NOV-skyeh GOO-rih") is the only underground tourist route in Poland set inside former silver, lead and zinc mines. You descend about 40 m (130 ft) below ground, walk nearly 2 km of old…
Mountains & peaks
Wisła
On the summit of Czantoria Wielka (995 m) you can stand with one foot in Poland and the other in the Czech Republic — and at the same time on Poland's main watershed, which divides the basins of the Vistula and the Oder. It is one of the m…
Mountains & peaks
Wołosate
Tarnica (1,346 m) is the highest peak of the Polish Bieszczady Mountains and of the whole Podkarpackie region — and the best viewpoint in this corner of the Carpathians. When the air is exceptionally clear, you can see not only the Tatras…
Mountains & peaks
Sromowce Niżne
Trzy Korony (say "tshih koh-ROH-nih"), meaning "Three Crowns," is the most famous peak of the Pieniny Mountains on the Polish–Slovak border. From the railed viewing platform on its highest crag, Okrąglica (982 m / 3,222 ft), you look strai…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Święta Katarzyna
For decades hikers posed by the cross on Łysica's western summit, convinced they were standing on the highest point of the Holy Cross Mountains (Góry Świętokrzyskie). Measurements in 2018, however, showed that a rocky ridge a few hundred m…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Szczyrk
Skrzyczne (1,257 m) is the highest peak of the Silesian Beskids and one of the summits of the Crown of Polish Mountains, a list of the highest points of Poland's mountain ranges. Above the Żywiec Basin it rises as a single, almost 800-metr…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Piechowice
Two rocky bowls carved by glaciers beneath the main ridge of the Karkonosze, with cliffs, gullies and snow that lingers well into spring — Śnieżne Kotły (the Snowy Cirques) form the most alpine landscape in the Polish Sudetes. On their rim…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Karłów
A trapezoid block of rock covered in forest, visible from around Kłodzko and from Náchod in the Czech Republic — this is Szczeliniec Wielki, the highest peak of the Table Mountains. 680 stone steps lead up to the plateau, where a labyrinth…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Prudnik
Biskupia Kopa (say "bees-KOO-pya KOH-pa"; 890 m) is the highest peak of the Opawskie Mountains, a small range of the eastern Sudetes on the Poland–Czech border, and one of the peaks of the Crown of Polish Mountains. Beech forests, a mounta…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Bystra
In the early 19th century nobody called this peak Klimczok: it was known as Goryczna Skałka, and its present name came from a Romantic-era tale of an outlaw who supposedly hid in a cave below the summit. Klimczok (1,117 m) is one of the mo…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Zakopane
Nosal (1,206 m) is the quickest way from Zakopane to a proper Tatra view: a green trail climbs from Kuźnice to the summit in about 35 minutes. This modest crag closes the north-eastern ridge of Kasprowy Wierch and takes its name from rocks…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Karpacz
Śnieżka (pronounced roughly "SHNYEZH-kah"; Czech: Sněžka, German: Schneekoppe) is the highest mountain in the Giant Mountains and the whole Sudetes range, rising above the resort town of Karpacz on the Polish–Czech border. Its rocky cone,…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Zakopane
Beskid (2,012 m) is the easternmost peak on the main ridge of the Western Tatras and one of the easiest 2,000-metre summits to reach in Poland. A short ridge walk separates it from the top station of the Kasprowy Wierch cable car, and from…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Izby
Lackowa (997 m) is the highest peak in the Polish part of the Low Beskids and one of the summits of the Crown of Polish Mountains. From a distance it looks like a gentle wooded dome, yet from the west it is climbed by one of the steepest m…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Koniaków
Rain falling on Ochodzita can end up in three different rivers: the Soła and the Vistula, the Olza and the Oder, or via the Váh in the Danube. This treeless, dome-shaped hill, 895 metres high, rises above the village of Koniaków right on t…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Bielsko-Biała
Szyndzielnia takes its name from the local dialect word szyndzioł, meaning a wooden roof shingle: villagers from Kamienica and Olszówka made shingles for the town of Bielsko from timber felled on its slopes. Today you ride up the mountain…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Soblówka
Wielka Rycerzowa (1,226 m) is a border peak in a remote corner of the Żywiec Beskids, where water running off one slope ends up in the Baltic and off the other in the Black Sea. The summit itself is partly wooded, but right next to it lies…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
gmina Mirsk
The highest peak of the Izera Mountains has neither a tower nor a mountain hut — instead it has a gentle, treeless dome covered in meadows, which shows clearly what happened to the forests of the Sudetes in the 1980s. Wysoka Kopa (1,126 m,…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Wisła
Cieślar is the most common surname in Wisła: as early as 1621, just after the village was founded, four Cieślar families lived here. They gave their name to this grassy summit on the Czech border, about 920 m above sea level (sources give…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Duszniki-Zdrój
Emperor Joseph II, future US president John Quincy Adams and the young Fryderyk Chopin all once stood on the summit of Orlica. This border peak (1,084 m) is the highest point of the Polish part of the Orlické Mountains (Góry Orlickie) and…
Rysy – 2,499 m above sea level. The trail from Morskie Oko past Czarny Staw is demanding and secured with chains near the top; the whole hike takes 8–10 hours.
In the Tatra National Park, yes: a one-day ticket costs 11 zł, reduced 5.50 zł. Some towers and viewing galleries charge too, for example 10 zł on Trzy Korony. Beskid trails are usually free.
In the Silesian region (more than 40 peaks, mostly in the Beskids), Lesser Poland (more than 30) and Lower Silesia (more than 25).
Gentle peaks with a chairlift or a short climb, such as Czantoria with the lift from Ustroń Polana or Szczeliniec Wielki. Rysy and Giewont with their chains are not for small children.
Updated: · Opening hours and prices can change — check the attraction page before you go.