Trail Review: Kekestetö-Sirok

Blue Bar Trail 
Kekestetö Tower to Sirok Train Station
20.4 km
7 hours at moderate pace

(All trail distances are quite unreliable estimations!)

First solo backpacking trip in this country -- or any other -- coincided with a weekend too beautiful to be spent sitting in a Budapest office taking the Foreign Service Exam. A little stir crazy after enough time spent in Heves for a while, I high-tailed it an hour and a half north to the Matra Hills. On clear days, you can see them from here. They taunt me.

Marching without a plan, map, compass or fire-igniting device (the first three were intentional voids, the latter was not), it turned out to be an awesome over-night. Many more trails to be explored in the hills, and I hope to take the Green Club that way sometime this spring. In case I went missing in the mountains, I left a note on my kitchen/living room/bedroom/dining room table offering a destination and expected return time of 6:00 pm Saturday evening. My muddy boots and I walked back into the door at 5:59 pm.

Kekesteto (Szanatorium) is a scenic and easy bus ride (45 minutes, 254 ft) from Gyöngyös, the Gateway of the Matra region. Another option is to take the narrow gauge railroad from Gyöngyös to Matrafured and hike any of the 5 trails to the summit. That choice would add an additional 600m elevation gain over an extra 6km.

Kekes summit, the highest point in Hungary at 1013m, offers a post office, tourist gift shops, a hotel and a restaurant. The dominant feature, seen from all direction for many kilometers, is a massive red and while television tower. During the winter, the summit doubles as a mini-ski hill. In early April, most buildings still had Christmas decorations and were closed on a Friday afternoon. Many people were climbing to the summit as a nice day hike.

Blue Bar trailhead is located east of the summit marker, just downhill of the TV tower. Coupled with the Yellow Bar trail in the beginning, the trail skirts past sanitarium buildings (the domain of a frightening German shepherd) before dropping from the peak through a dense forest. The uppermost hundred meters or so of elevation were still snow-covered on April 7th. Shaded portions of the next 100 meters of elevation also had lingering snowbanks.

No official word if camping is actually allowed or in any way regulated, but a level clearing, perhaps 1km below summit, offers a large possible campsite. As the trail continues, expansive views to the north open up from balds and crests. At 2km, a rocky top labeled disznokö (pig-stone) showed evidence of campfires.

Over the next kilometer, the trail weaves downhill. Be forewarned that Hungarian trail-builders have rejected the concept of switchbacks and prefer push their trails straight up and down long hillsides. The following kilometer of trail snakes through recently lumbered hillside and cross a logging road and wood piles. Cell phone reception on the trail is generally good, at least at the crests where I would stop and check. I did, however, get a text message welcoming me to Slovakia, so no guarantees.

At approximately 5km, there’s a nice level hilltop just above the trail. If you need a campsite or picnic spot, look for it on the left hand side just you pass a logging road with a checkered gate on your right hand side. Offers a shaded view of a pretty lake (Markazi-to) and a nuclear power plant. Ahh, powerplants and strip mines…what a view. (Strangely enough they don't ruin the wilderness experience at all.) One kilometer further, there is an established campsite with fire ring. Signs declare it to be site E4, but it looks seldom used.

Past the campsite, a private boundary forces the next 2 kilometers of trail to go straight up and then straight down a high crest. The top offers good views, the bottom features a cool pine forest and a deserted log cabin. Saw only one person on the trail, right before the cabin. He gave me rather inaccurate information in broken German. No sir, Sirok did not turn out to be two hours away and entirely downhill. Did see four deer.

There’s a beautiful bald and rocky summit close to the midpoint of the trail (10km). Untrampled valleys and hillsides stretch out before your eyes, and you can see the crest you’ve followed. The next four kilometers of the trail follow fenced property line, and while the views can be grand, the trailside scenery is less than spectacular. Trail seemed overgrown in some parts of the second half. But blazes are fresh and easy to follow.

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

At 12km, there is a green barn sitting above a lumbered hillside that looks like it holds wild summer-time goulash weekends. Lack of switchbacks gets discouraging. So, too, does the number of recently-lumbered hillsides. Two kilometers later, after a long washed-out descent, there is a spring and reservoir, which seems to be one of the few dependable sources of water on the trail.

The trail begins to follow a broad logging road for quite a while after the spring. There is a nice established camp site, nestled at a junction with the Blue Dot trail, at 16km. The camp fire ring has nice benches and there is a lot of level ground. In April, though, much of the ground was soggy. The stagnant ponds didn’t look like good sources of water. Bring it from the spring as you pass.

A kilometer’s hike up a ridge line brings you back to grand views. Just before an impressive rock face, there is a level step, just below the trail, that would make a nice but dry campsite area. The next kilometer takes you down the crest, the final big hill of the trail, into a rather ugly recently-logged area. Boots got muddier in last 3km than rest of trail combined.

Once out of the hills, the final two kilometers of trail meander through nice mixed forests. A little stream flows next to the trail for some stretch, and even carves a nice gulch next to the trail at one point. After a little clearing and cabin next to the river, the trail cuts across a tall-grass prairie in search of the highway.

As the trail hits the road, turn left and hike along the shoulder. Blue Bar blazes will continue to guide you to the little train station, 400m. There, a little sign will confirm that you just marched 20.4km and a one-car train will take you back to Kal/Kapolna (30 minutes, 124 ft) at irregular intervals. Be prepared to wait.

There is no Saturday bus service from any of the bus stops along the highway by the train station. You might have better luck in the town of Sirok (2,500 people), 3km up the road. The city is best known for its scenic medieval castle perched on a ledge above the town. If you walk down the train tracks for 200m, you can catch a glimpse of the stone ruins in the distance. Eger is 26km away by bus, Kal is 35km away by train.