Pilsko is the second highest mountain, , in the Żywiec Beskids ( Oravské Beskydy in Slovakia) mountain range, on the border between

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

. It is a hiking destination in summer and a skiing area in winter. The name Pilsko is frequently used not only to describe the main peak, which lies in Slovakia, but also whole range. The mountain lies not only on the border between the two nations, it also marks the European Watershed. Origins of the name of Pilsko are not known, it might have been named after an 18th-century owner of local meadows, named Piela. There are several other theories, scholar A. Siemionow claims that Pilsko is a distorted, Slovak version of the word Poland. What is known is that the name first appears in documents from 1721, in a book “Historia Naturalis Curiosa Regni Poloniae”, written by Reverend Gabriel Rzaczynski (who also was first reported man to climb the mountain). Upper part of Pilsko is flat and made of limestone, covered by grass and

mountain pine ''Pinus mugo'', known as bog pine, creeping pine, dwarf mountain pine, mugo pine, mountain pine, scrub mountain pine, or Swiss mountain pine, is a species of conifer, native to high elevation habitats from southwestern to Central Europe and S ...

. On Slovak side there is a field altar, founded by residents of the Orava village of Mutne. Every year in July, a parish priest from Mutne comes here for a service. On northeastern slope, along yellow tourist trail, there is a cross, commemorating one of the first victims of the 1939

Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, a

Border Defence Corps The Border Protection Corps ( pl, Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, KOP) was a military formation of the Second Polish Republic that was created in 1924 to defend the country's eastern borders against armed Soviet incursions and local bandits. Other ...

Corporal, Franciszek Basik. In 1967, the government of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

created a nature reserve in Slovak side of Pilsko, with the area of 809 hectares. Polish nature reserve, created in 1971, is much smaller, as it covers only 15.4 hectares. The peak provides views of the Western Beskids, the

Tatras The Tatra Mountains (), Tatras, or Tatra (''Tatry'' either in Slovak () or in Polish () - ''plurale tantum''), are a series of mountains within the Western Carpathians that form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They are the high ...

, and sometimes eastern slopes of the Sudetes. Two skiing centers operate on slopes in the area of Korbielow: Skiing Center Pilsko in Korbielow, and Kolej Baba in Korbielow-Kamienna. In the 1990s, more than 10 hectares of forests were cleared for construction of ski trails, which resulted in protests of ecological organizations both from Poland, and former Czechoslovakia. Influx of tourists resulted in a 1980 tragedy, when a group of athletes with their coach got lost, and four young men died of hypothermia. Pilsko has a PTTK shelter, located at the height of 1,270 meters, near which there is a junction of tourist trails.

References

{{reflist Mountains of Poland Mountains of Slovakia Mountains of the Western Carpathians Landforms of Silesian Voivodeship Poland–Slovakia border International mountains of Europe