Poland: The Ice-Divers of Zakopane | European Journal

As Poland's best-known winter sports destination, Zakopane draws plenty of visitors. Avalanches are common here, so the mountain search and rescue service spends a lot of time preparing for the worst.They practice searching for people buried beneath the snow with specially trained dogs. They also do ice diving, because avalanches can hurl hikers or skiers into one of the lakes around the mountain area - and the team is responsible for their rescue. Their ice-diving training takes place on Morskie Oko, the largest lake in Poland's Tatra Mountains.