Limestone. It happens to be beautiful, orange. Rich in its structure… You touch with pleasure and think to yourself with a smile on your face; And the guys are sitting on the Jura… In your mind’s eye, you can already see their jealous faces when you load up together on campus and you, with an angelic face, reminisce about your last trip… 😉 You open your eyes and come back to reality. Because limestone can also be greyish, often sharp, and treated with mud and glue, ugly and ungrateful. You look at this gray, sometimes heavily overhanging wall and wonder… Which makes the “guests” come back to this place with the obstinacy of a maniac dozens of times.
Vernar is a large limestone wall located next to the village of the same name on the slope of the Barbolica mountain in eastern Slovakia. After a 20-minute steep walk through the forest uphill, we reach the wall exposed strictly until noon, with about 50 roads in the range of 6a to 8c. There are very few easy roads, but the majority of them are more difficult. Limestone, as you can already guess, gray, quite poor in places when it comes to sculpture; Edges, holes, scratches and, unfortunately, products of human hands dominate. A lot of roads are forged, tweaked with glue and crafted grips… An example of this is the classic of the region, Sika (7c+) welcoming us on her overhanging start with large-sized, glued, unaesthetic grips. Carved with the finesse of a pile driver, one could say, but surprisingly the climb is a very interesting route. There are more such positions. Normally, as a declared enemy of forging and gluing, I would write unfortunately. But in the case of this place, the matter is not as black and white as it seems. Just like Rożnów for Sącz, Vernar is a kind of cargo hold for stronger riders from nearby Poprad. If it wasn’t for the preparation, there would probably be 15 roads here, maybe a bit more. For the most part, however, everything is done in such a way that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what’s natural and what’s not… The rock itself does not present such aesthetic values as, for example, the well-known Prządki Reserve. On the other hand, when you look at it, forged is forged, nature cannot be caught up with and any interference with the rock leaves deep traces, also on the psyche. On mine for sure. So all you have to do is either accept the local rules or look for another place. Mixed feelings, one would like to say… Fortunately, a few local gems soothe these dilemmas with their beauty. Krasavica, Krasavica Direct (7a+/7b), Ligretto (7a+) or Linea Magica (8b) could be good positions in many seemingly more “branded” areas.
Since we are dealing here with a southern exposure, the best time to climb is early spring and late autumn. It is also possible in winter, many times I managed to find bearable conditions in mid-January, but here it can be a lottery. If we encounter a lack of sun, wind with a direction tangent to the wall… and flooded or frozen overhangs… We’re in for a good hardcore or coming home with our tail between our legs. However, I certainly don’t recommend summer… Then the place becomes a real paradise for masochists who love boiling water.
Is it worth it? It’s hard to say really. Everyone should make up their own minds, but I’m one of those “guys” who will come back there more than once…
