I was attracted to the Velký Sokol gorge hike because the pictures showed lots of ladders to climb - it looked like an adventure! Plus, the trail descriptions made it sound like a scenic hike. It turned out that there are several long ladders to climb, but it seemed to me that there were even more ladders on the Sucha Bela gorge hike. The hike itself isn't hard - it is a nice walk up a long gorge; when you reach the end of the gorge, the return trail is through a forest along the rim of the gorge until there is a rather steep downhill at the end.

We started really early because the forecast predicted noon showers. We started at 6:45 A.M. and were back at the car before noon. As we drove away, a terrific cloudburst came rolling through. I was glad we were in the car and not in the gorge climbing on the ladders in a rainstorm like that.

The official start and end of Velký Sokol is at a parking lot in the small town of Pila. There is a ticket booth there, but it was unmanned when we got there for an early morning start. Hikers are expected to take the green trail to the mouth of the of gorge, and then hike up the yellow trail - which will take you to the end of the gorge. The return is on the red trail (be careful at the intersection with the blue trail - stay on the red trail, which continues down and into the trees, it is not immediately obvious which way the red trail goes; we weren't paying a lot of attention, and walked a short distance down the blue trail before realizing our mistake. Follow the red trail back toward the start, when you reach the yellow trail, that is the return to Pila.

I read a trail description of Velký Sokol that said you can park right at the start. That may have been true once, but it is not true now. We did park there, well off the road, and when we returned from our hike, there was park employee manning a ticket booth that had been empty when we started early in the morning. This park worker had placed a boot on the rear wheel of our car. Since he spoke no English, we couldn't figure out what he was upset about. Fortunately, another hiker happened along, and he translated for us. It turns out that parking at the start of the yellow trail is illegal - there is a sign a few kilometers up the road that says (in Slovak) no parking on the roadside. Then why is a park employee manning a ticket booth if no one can stop there? There is a bus stop there, so hikers can take transit to the yellow trail head. The park employee charged us 10 Euros, which I guess was the combined cost of parking and admission to the national park. If we had parked at the official start in Pila, there is a ticket booth there (but that was not occupied when we drove up for our early start. I think that Slovenský raj National Park doesn't open until 7 A.M., so you cannot get an earlier start than that.

I got the following map from the official Slovensky Raj site.

It was difficult to find an accurate distance for this trail, each hiking description that I found showed a different length. This hike map says 26.5 KM (16.5 miles), 7.5 hours. But the trail must be shorter, it only took us about 5 hours to complete the circuit.

This description says the Velký Sokol is 21 KM long. Here is another trail description.

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Velký Sokol Photos