Walk 1: Summit of Slavkavský štít.
The first walk was to the summit of Slavkavský štít, the mountain we could see from the hotel. It was a short walk from the hotel to the start of the path near the funicular railway station in Starý Smokovec. The path climbed up through the woods, which eventually gave way to shrubs and then to bare rock. Near the top of the treeline there was a good viewpoint, from where we could see the end of the two valleys we would be walking along on walk 2. Although it was a sunny day, there was quite a noticeable drop in temperature as we ascended.
After stopping for some lunch the girls decided they didn't think they would make it to the summit, so Andy, Dave and myself went on ahead, at quite a pace, reaching the busy summit at about 1:00 pm. While there was a bit of cloud around we had good views of the route we had come up and of Gerlachovský štít, the highest mountain in the range.
We then started our way down, meeting the girls just above Nos, back to Starý Smokovec, where we had a well deserved ice cream.
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