Crooked Forest

I woke up one weekend morning saw the sun through the window and decided that I had to go somewhere. I decided to see what interesting things I could visit by going to the sea.

Most of us associate the West Pomeranian Voivodeship with beautiful seaside towns and with Szczecin. West Pomerania has much more to offer than we think.

More than once, going to the sea, I have passed through smaller and larger towns and did not pay attention to what they may hide in them.

A few days before my trip, while browsing through various URBEX-type groups, I noticed a very interesting place called Crooked Forest. The name itself is quite interesting so I started looking. With help came at first glance instagram after typing #curves shows us a mass of beautiful photos.

Krzywy Las is located near Gryfino in the tiny village of Nowe Czarnowo.

You are probably asking yourself how to get there? nothing simpler google comes to our aid. After entering Crooked Forest in google maps, it immediately takes us to the designated place. ( Those who do not use google maps will have to direct themselves to Gryfino then drive in the direction of Chojna and head to the village of Nowe Czarnowo Power Plant “Dolna Odra”.

Upon arrival, we see a several-story building with a large sign and No. 51 Nowe Czarnowo then an arrow appears to us, and behind it we see a barrier through which we pass without a problem because there is a footpath made.

To my surprise, the path is very well marked, and after leaving the car we have to walk about 300 m and we arrive at the site.

Crooked Forest is geared up for visiting tourists because there are places where we can rest, have a snack and see the place we have been waiting for.

At the site there is a plaque informing us that it is one of the many natural monuments in the West Pomeranian province. But this monument is quite intriguing and carries a lot of different conspiracy theories. In fact, what’s unique about the crooked forest? and that there are more than 100 crooked common pines growing in a small area of about 3,000m2 that are crooked in an unnatural way. Each of the pine trees is bent at an angle of 90°and resembles the letter “C” interestingly enough all of them are bent in the north direction some trees curvature reaches, as much as 3m, and the maximum height is 12m so really quite a lot.

The view on a sunny day is amazing, but what if we saw it on a foggy day? Well, exactly, but what was the purpose of creating this forest? on the Internet we can find various stories one of them says that tanks stationed during World War II invaded the young pine trees and so the Crooked Forest was created. In my opinion, it is unlikely that so perfectly the tanks damaged more than 100 trees. The second and more true story in my opinion is that the trees were planted around 1934 for carpentry and boatbuilding purposes (making furniture, sleds, boats). We won’t really know what the purpose was, but one thing I do know is that this place needs to be taken care of so that it survives for years to come and attracts visitors who are interested in interesting places in the West Pomeranian region.

One interesting fact is that a few days ago I was driving in the Land of 100 Lakes between Sierakow and Chojno I found by accident a similar already not so spectacular Crooked Forest so I think there are more such places. Believe me I was really strongly surprised to have such a place under my nose.