The Day Lightning Struck Giewont

I was not on Giewont on 22 August 2019. I want to say that clearly, because everything I write below comes from having stood on those same chains on a different, ordinary morning, and from having since read the incident reports, the TOPR statements and the accounts of people who were there. But I was close enough, in the years since, hiking the same ridge in the same kind of July heat, to understand exactly why that one afternoon changed how everyone here talks about this mountain.

A clear morning, an ordinary crowd

Giewont does not look dangerous. From Krupówki it is the silhouette everyone in Zakopane grows up with, the “sleeping knight” whose ridge line is supposed to trace a man lying on his back, arms crossed, with the 15 m iron cross of 1901 marking his chest. The approach from Kuźnice through Kalatówki and the Kondratowa hut takes about three hours, mostly on an ordinary forest and meadow path. It is only the last 100 to 200 metres that turn into something else: bare, polished limestone, a fixed steel chain, and a queue, because there is only room for one person at a time in each direction.

On 22 August 2019 that queue was full. It was a Thursday in late summer, warm and humid, the kind of morning that in the Tatras regularly turns into a storm by early afternoon — a pattern that anyone who reads a seasonal guide to summer weather here learns quickly. Dozens of hikers were on the final stretch when the sky changed.

Witnesses described the storm forming within about an hour, not building slowly from a visible front but arriving fast, the way storms do when they form directly over the ridge rather than approaching across the valley. By early afternoon lightning was striking the summit area repeatedly, with people still clipped to the chains or standing near the cross.

What actually happened

Four people died that afternoon, and more than a hundred were injured — some by direct or indirect lightning strikes, others by falls on wet rock as the crowd tried to move down chains that were now slick and crowded in both directions at once. It is the deadliest single weather event in the modern history of the Polish Tatras, and it happened on the most-visited chained route in the entire range, on a day that had looked, at seven in the morning from Zakopane, like any other clear summer day.

I find the ordinariness of that morning the hardest part to sit with. This was not a forecasted storm that people ignored, nor a route that was closed and breached. It was the normal geometry of a Tatra summer afternoon meeting the normal geometry of Giewont’s chains: a fast-forming storm over the single most exposed, least escapable piece of trail in the region, at the hour when the most people are on it.

Why the chains are the problem, not the mountain

I have climbed Giewont since, on a morning when I was on the chains by nine and back at the Kondratowa hut before eleven, with cloud only starting to build as I ate lunch in the valley. What struck me, going up, is how little room there is to change your mind halfway. Below the chains you can simply stop, sit under a rock, wait. On the chains, in a queue, with people above and below you on a single fixed line bolted into wet limestone, there is no fast way down and no shelter to duck into. You are, for those fifteen or twenty minutes, the tallest metal-adjacent object on an open ridge.

That is the physical fact the 2019 storm made unavoidable: the danger on Giewont was never really the difficulty of the climbing, which is moderate by Tatra standards. It is the combination of total exposure and total commitment — once you are on the chains, going back is barely faster than going on, and the Tatra safety guidance that every hut and every guide repeats now starts from that fact rather than treating it as background detail.

How the conversation changed after 2019

Nothing was rebuilt after that storm. There is no new railing, no weather shelter, no automatic closure at a set hour. What changed is softer and, I think, more durable: I have not once, since 2019, heard a guide, a hut warden or a TOPR volunteer describe turning back below the summit as a disappointment. It is now the plainly stated default. Guides mention the date by name — “remember 2019” — the way people elsewhere might say “remember the ferry schedule.” It has become shorthand, not folklore.

Practically, this shows up as a single, repeated instruction rather than a set of rules: start at first light, be off any exposed ridge by early afternoon, and treat a darkening sky or a first distant rumble as a decision already made, not a decision to weigh. On the chains themselves there is rarely a faster way down than the way you came, so the only safety margin that actually works is time — leaving early enough that the question never has to be asked with thunder already audible.

What I do differently now

I no longer plan a Giewont morning around when I want to wake up. I plan it around the storm.

If I am not on the trail from Kuźnice by seven, I move the climb to another day, or I choose something with no exposure at all — a walk in the Kościeliska valley, or an afternoon at the thermal baths instead, which is exactly the kind of low-risk plan B worth booking ahead, whether that’s a day tour to the Zakopane hot springs or, further along the valley, a Chochołowska baths and sauna trip for the evening after an early mountain start.

On a genuinely uncertain forecast I sometimes skip the chains altogether and take a valley-based day instead, the kind sold as a Morskie Oko and Zakopane day trip, which shows the high Tatra country without putting anyone on an open ridge in the early afternoon. None of this makes Giewont less worth climbing. If anything, doing it at six or seven in the morning, with the ridge empty and the light still low and gold over the Podhale, is the better version of the hike anyway.

The 2019 storm did not close a door. It just told everyone here, permanently, which hours to use it in — a lesson worth reading alongside how many days to plan for Zakopane in the first place and what the weather actually does here month by month, before you build a multi-day itinerary around a single chained summit.

Giewont safety and the 2019 storm: your questions

What happened on Giewont on 22 August 2019?

A thunderstorm broke over the summit in the early afternoon while dozens of hikers were still on the exposed, chained final stretch below the iron cross. Four people were killed and more than a hundred were injured, most by lightning strikes and falls on the wet rock. It remains the deadliest single weather event in the modern history of the Polish Tatras.

Why is Giewont’s summit so dangerous in a storm?

The last 100 to 200 metres are bare, polished limestone fitted with steel chains, with no shelter and nothing higher nearby except the cross itself. In a storm this section becomes both a lightning conductor and a queue: people cannot move quickly up or down, so they are trapped in the open exactly when they most need to descend. The booking guidance for Tatra permits and tickets does not cover this — it is purely a matter of timing your own climb.

When are afternoon thunderstorms most likely in the Tatras?

July and August see the most frequent afternoon storms, often building within an hour on a hot, humid morning that looked perfectly clear at sunrise. The safest pattern is to start very early, reach any exposed ridge or summit before midday, and be back below the treeline by early afternoon.

Has anything changed on Giewont since the 2019 storm?

There is no new infrastructure, no earlier closing time and no weather barrier at the chains. What changed is how local guides, mountain huts and TOPR talk about the mountain: turning back below the summit is now treated as the default sensible choice, not a failure, and the 2019 storm is cited by name as the reason why.

What should I do if I am on the chains and a storm starts building?

Turn around immediately, before the storm arrives, not once it does. On the chained section there is often no faster way down than the way you came, so the only real safety margin is time — start early enough that you are never deciding this question with thunder already audible.

Is Giewont still worth hiking?

Yes, for a fit hiker with an early start and a realistic weather check. The exposure is the same exposure that makes the summit worthwhile; the difference between a good day and a dangerous one is almost entirely the hour you are on the chains, not the mountain itself, and it is worth reading about how tourist mistakes compound in the Tatras before you go.

Is mountain rescue free if something goes wrong on Giewont?

Yes. TOPR, the Tatra volunteer rescue service, responds free of charge anywhere in the Polish Tatras, including by helicopter. Call 985 or +48 601 100 300, or 112. Free rescue is not a reason to take the risk lightly; it exists because the risk is real.