Nosal
The historic race slope on the edge of Zakopane, long reckoned the hardest piste in Poland, whose 1967 chairlift has stood idle since 2012 because the bottom of the hill and the top belong to different owners.
- Region
- Lesser Poland
- Country
- Poland
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1953
- Year closed
- 2012
- Reason for closure
- Not snow or money but ownership. The lower part of the slope belongs to a private family, the Stramas, while the upper part of the run and the summit lie inside the Tatra National Park, and the resulting legal and property deadlock has kept the chairlift out of service since 2012. Later plans for a modern replacement lift ran into a demand that Nosal be designated a protection zone for peregrine falcons, a strictly protected species on Poland's Red List.
History
Nosal is a rocky spur at the edge of Zakopane, on the boundary of the Tatra National Park, and its north face carried what Polish skiers generally regarded as the most demanding piste in the country - the training and racing hill for the national team, run by the Central Sports Centre. The first course was cut in 1953, a lift followed in 1957, and the chairlift to the summit went up in 1967. It has been still since 2012, and the reason is neither weather nor economics: the lower section of the slope is privately owned by the Strama family while the upper run and the summit lie within the national park, and the two sides have not been reconcilable. More than a decade of proposals has come and gone; the park authority announced that the run would reopen with a modern lift in 2024, only for conservation groups to press for Nosal to be made a protection zone for peregrine falcons, which nest on its crags. Meanwhile the old chairlift stands rusting above an overgrown piste within sight of the centre of Poland's best-known mountain town, and the local press has written for years about the slope dying in plain view. Piste names and the chairlift's manufacturer are not recorded in accessible sources.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift | The chairlift to the summit, built in 1967 and owned by the Central Sports Centre (COS). Out of service since 2012 and left standing | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | The first lift on the hill, installed in 1957, four years after the run was cut |
Sources and further reading
- https://dzieje.pl/rozmaitosci/szanse-na-uruchomienie-historycznej-trasy-narciarskiej-na-nosalu
- https://zakopane.naszemiasto.pl/zakopane-stok-na-nosalu-umiera-na-naszych-oczach/ar/c7-1718175
- https://www.gazetaprawna.pl/wiadomosci/artykuly/927068,wyciag-na-nosalu-trasa-narciarska.html
- https://psnit.pl/na-nosalu-kultowa-trasa-narciarska-zostanie-ponownie-otwarta/
Location
49.2764, 19.9895