Thanks to everyone who replied. We have been checking out the various links and are gradually piecing together a route.

Hello !

I am french but living in Poland, I have a little experience of Polish huts ("Schronisko")..
Morskie Oko is overcrowded place, it"s full of the time (but the architecture of the hut very beautiful).
Piecu Stawow, the highest one, is very nicely located but also very crowded especially long week ends with nice weather, always have the sleeping bag and mattress.
Hali Ornak and Chocholowska are less frequented places and the huts are bigger. There you will almost always find space for you. Murowaniec is also a very big one, with more people but less than Piecu Stawow for example.
There is also a very small one in Dolina Kondratowa on the way to Giewont, "Hala Kondratowa" :
kondratowa.com$ret
but also too small. A bit below in the valley is an alternative, "hotel Kalatowki" kalatowki.pl$ret
which is not really a mountain hut not really a hotel, a bit between (we could compare this to Slieszki Dom in SK side).
If you are member of a mountaineering club affiliated to UIAA there are more places you can sleep, like the winter hut of Morskie Oko, the hut "Betlejemka" near Murowaniec :
pza.org.pl/tatry/index.acs
or also a campsite in Sucha Dolina (something like Bielovodska Dolina in SK)

Eric

Rosemary,
you might also try using hikeplanner.eu - it is our tool for planning hikes in English language. It is still basic and much work needs to be done, but it might help you anyways.

Interesting about the sleeping bags, I"ll go and look for more light weight ones to take with us. The ones we currently use are rated to -12"C and are suitable for tenting but not for sleeping in huts. The Zadne Medodoly route does sounds much more interesting than the others and from what I read in our books would have been our first choice.

To eskimo - hiking in south western British Columbia usually starts at sea level then climbs through forests to above the tree line and into mountain meadows. Once above tree line the views are spectacular.

We have just been looking at the website for turistickamapa and have found it to be very helpful. Now we"re off to buy a slovak dictionary!!

Thanks so much. I"m sure I"ll have more questions to ask as we plan further.

Concerning sleeping bag:
You would get along pretty well with a light sleeping bag, let"s say 900g. It would not take more room then a regular sleeping sheet. Good thing is you would save money and always have a "homelike" feeling wherever you sleep. For example, in Teryho chata there is no bed-sheets-option available.

Concerning northen route:
I would recommend Zadne Medodoly as Eskimo said, limestones of Belianske Tatras are wonderful with contrast of granite High Tatras. You can make it for Chata pri Zelenom plese or Chata Plesnivec. The later is less crowded and if the first is overbooked, try Plesnivec.

Suggestion:
Go to turistickamapa.sk$ret browse for High Tatras (mid north) and in layer switcher turn on "Fotky z Galerie". It gives you photos on directly in map and you can see for your self how it looks like over there. In case you would have any difficulties, feel free to ask here, we will do our best to help :-).

Unfortunately, I do not have too much experience approaching the High Tatras from the north (i.e. from the direction of Lysa Polana and the Polish border), so I can give you only a limited advice... anyway, from the 3 alternatives you mention, I would recommend you to follow the blue trail from Tatranska Javorina (if you don"t want to walk along the road from Lysa Polana to Tatranska Javorina, you can take a bus - here you can find some timetables cp.atlas.sk/vlakbus/spojenie/ ) via Zadne Medodoly to the Chata pri Zelenom plese... The reason is that the Zadne Medodoly valley lies on a boundary between Belianske Tatry and Vysoke Tatry. Belianske Tatry (to the east from the valley) are white, built from limestone, whereas Vysoke Tatry (to the west) are built from granite and therefore darker... In my opinion it is worth experiencing the Belianske Tatry as well and seeing the contrast...

Btw. just to correct you: there are no black trails in the Tatras, the one from Lysa Polana to Zbojnicka chata is marked blue (I don"t know what kind of map you have but in case you find it inappropriate, have a look at turistickamapa.sk$ret , which I guess is much newer than yours :-)

When I say a sleeping bag, I mean a sleeping bag :-) But I think that you can do equally well without it, if you book the huts in advance...

P.S. although I"m not planning to go there, I am a bit curious - what is hiking like in British Columbia?

Thanks for all the replies. We arrive in Vienna early on Sept 1 and are either planning on staying in Vienna for 2-3 days for sight seeing or taking the train or bus to Krakow and doing sight seeing there. Our hiking plan is to head to Zakopane and then walk to the Schronisko Dolinie Pieciu Stawow for the night. From there we will then head to Lysa Polana border crossing and now comes the choices. From our map it appears that we can walk along a Black trail heading to Zbojnicka Chata or we can walk along the road a bit then have 2 choices of trails, one up the Javorova dolina to the Teryho chata or up the Zadne medodoly which would take us to the red trail to Chata pri Zelenom plese. Do you have any suggestions as to which would be to walk on for the best views? After leaving one of these chatas we will work our way along the red trail stopping at various chatas to do some other day walks. We haven"t really researched out that section too much yet. We have a copy of the Cicerone hiking guide so that is helpful but if anyone has any favourites routes we are open to suggestions. Altogether we probably have about 8-9 nights in the mountains.

As for the sleeping bag question... when you say sleeping bag do you mean just a sleeping sheet or a real sleeping bag that is much more bulky?

We are coming from Vancouver BC Canada and would prefer not to carry too much stuff.

Thanks again. We are looking forward to exploring the Tatras.

Because contacts to slovak cottages are here in this web site.

raymond, I wonder why you promote Polish huts first and not our Slovak ones... I think that a reverse order would be much more appropriate :-)

Anyway, to contribute with a piece of information myself, here you can find a list of mountain huts in the Slovak part of the High Tatras, including phone numbers and e-mails:
tatry.sk/en/mountain-hutts/
(I have not tested the numbers nor the e-mails myself, so I do not know if they work, but you can give it a try.)

As for the sleeping bag, IMHO it is always a good thing to have. If not for anything else, then at least for the price of the accommodation - when you sleep in your own sleeping bag, the price is lower than when you require bed linen to be provided...

Have a nice hike in the High Tatras!

Here are some web sites of Polish cottages, you can book your place there. Problem is the language of the web site, so use the dictionary :-)))

lapinska.maria.webpark.pl/mai…

piecstawow.pl/ - this site has an english version

chocholowska.zakopane.pl/

ornak.tatrynet.pl/

murowaniec.pttk.pl/

Well, it"s hard to give advice if you don"t know your plan. What do you want to see? Tatras are not very big, but suitable chatas can be recommended only when we know your plans.
Booking is usually made by phone, chatas don"t have internet, so it could be a little bit of a problem for you. Sleeping bags are usually needed only when you don"t have reservation and chata is full and you have to sleep on the floor. :-) However there are some chatas where sleeping bag is recommended even if you sleep on the bed.
If you would like to plan your trek more precisely then you can find slovak hiking maps here: turistickamapa.sk$ret