Once a ski lift station, the site on Chopok is now a striking swing and mountain lookout. (source: OOCR Horehronie)
On Chopok, the third-highest peak of Slovakia’s Low Tatras, winter is a fierce landlord. Ice clings a metre thick to the buildings, snow lingers until May, and the thermometer averages just around zero. Yet here, in a place more often defined by blizzards than leisure, a curious new attraction has emerged.
Where a double-anchor ski lift once stood, rusting since the 1990s, visitors now line up for a turn on a swing. Not just any swing, but a vast bird’s-nest woven from willow branches, weighing more than 200 kilograms, suspended above a sweeping mountain panorama. On opening day in July, it became an instant hit - part thrill, part photo-op, part childlike joy.
The swing is one of eight stops on a new panoramic trail that links Horehronie with Liptov, reports My Novohrad. Beginning at Jasná, where a gate frames the surrounding peaks, the route guides walkers past a 3D model of the Tatras, outdoor learning panels about nature and cable cars, and a picnic spot called the “Table of Two Regions”, symbolically uniting north and south.
But the most atmospheric stop lies slightly higher: Chopok’s weather station. Tourists have long posed beside its snow-blasted walls, yet the new panels reveal its deeper story. For more than 70 years it has been the only professional meteorological post on these ridges. In its early days, forecasts were radioed out by hand, often during storms, when instruments froze and winds battered the hut. Even now, though automated, it remains staffed by mountain meteorologists.
A striking swing on Chopok (source: OOCR Horehronie)
The former double-anchor ski lift station on Chopok, March 2024. (source: Marcela Ballová)
The disused double-anchor ski lift station on Chopok, pictured while it lay in disrepair. (source: Marcela Ballová)
The statistics astonish: between 102 and 182 “ice days” each year, when the temperature never rises above freezing; frost rime as thick as 130 centimetres; gales so constant that not a single windless day has ever been recorded. The coldest? Minus 31.5°C, one January morning in 1963.
Despite this harshness, Chopok has always drawn people. In the 1960s, students known as chodníkari carved trails across its ridges, some leading directly to the summit. Today, the new panoramic path builds on that tradition, offering both heritage and spectacle.
So yes, Chopok is still one of the coldest, windiest places in Slovakia. But thanks to a giant swing and a little imagination, it is also one of the most playful.
Spectacular Slovakia travel guides
A helping hand in the heart of Europe thanks to our Slovakia travel guide, with more than 1,000 photos and hundreds of tourist spots.
Our detailed travel guide to the Tatras introduces you to the whole region around the Tatra mountains, including attractions on the Polish side.
Lost in Bratislava? That's impossible with our City Guide!
See some selected travel articles, podcasts, traveller info as well as other guides dedicated to Nitra, Trenčín Region, Trnava Region and Žilina Region.
