I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Karlovy Vary region in the Czech Republic. While reading about it before my trip I was expecting to only be surrounded by spas, yet, to my delight, I found myself in the middle of nature. Accompanied by wonderful people, an exceptional guide showed us some of the beautiful adventures the region has to offer.
1. Hiking
The Czech Republic has the densest network of hiking trails in the world. All the trails follow strict standards and are maintained yearly, the entire country following the same, standard marking system. All hiking trails are either red, green, blue or yellow, the coloured marks always surrounded by white. Over the summer volunteers make sure all the markings are still visible and in place. The colours have nothing to do with the difficulty of the trail, but rather with its length.
To make it easy even for the most unexperienced people, there is an app showing all the hiking trails in the country: mapy.cz. According to the guide, it is so useful “you could walk in forest in complete darkness without getting lost”. What I thought was a natural follow-up question to his statement was whether there are any animals that one should worry about in the mountains. I was assured that the only “dangerous” animals are some wolves, but in his many years of experience he has never encountered one. There are also some vipers and wild boars, but again they are almost never spotted.
One of the best parts about hiking in the Czech Republic is that, as I am told, you always hike to something. There is never a trail that does not lead somewhere. In our case, we went to see one of the Vlčí Jámy, or Wolf Pits, a series of abandoned tin mines in the Ore Mountains.
Going into the mine area is forbidden as there is a high chance of falling rocks, however, only a few meters further, one can admire the mine from the top and, in a corner, on the side of the path, there are stairs that descend into the mine.
The descent is steep, the stairs are uneven and slippery every here and there, the rail is without doubt a needed aid. But once the bottom is reached, a treasure for everybody’s inner child awaits… snow! Being so deep down the mountains and so narrow that the sun cannot reach it, the Ledová jáma, which translates to ice pit, always has some snow, even in the hottest summer days.
After a careful climb back up the stairs, we continued on our way. We reached a small kiosk atop the mountain. The Ore Mountains are very popular for cross country skiing and during winter there are a lot of refreshment spots along the trails. For summer, few remain opened. A hot chocolate later, we switched from the red trail to the yellow one and made our way down through the forest, back at the meeting spot.
2. Skiing
Speaking of skiing, The Krušné Mountains are an especially popular destination for downhill, as well as cross country skiing. At 1200m altitude, atop the highest peak in the mountain range, Klínovec, sits the Klínovec Ski Resort, the biggest interconnected ski resort in the Czech Republic. While the month of May is not ideal for skiing, it is good to know that the option exists.
The origins of sports at Klínovec can be found in the early 20th century, playing a role in winter sports from as early as the beginning of skiing in the Czech Republic. The resort features 31,5 km of slopes, 11 ski lifts, 5 chair lifts and 5 children’s conveyor belt. Most importantly for people like me who have never put on skis, there is also a school, offering lessons from experienced instructors for children from 3 years old, as well as adults.
3. Mountain biking
During the summer, the ski resort turns into a mountain bike trail park. It has some of the longest, continuous, singletrack descents in Europe and trails for all levels of experience. At the foot of the mountain there is a refreshment kiosk, a bike and scooter rental centre, a bike shop and repair shop. There are also self-service stations equipped with all the necessary tools for visitors to use, for free, for their bike maintenance. A few metres further, everyone lines up to board the Prima Express chairlift, themselves on the seats and their bikes on the special holders.
A nice ride on the chairlift offers a glimpse of some of the trails and the mountain peaks. At the top, the U staré lanovky restaurant awaits the hungry adventurers. From here the fun begins. Trail Park Klínovec offers 30 km of downhill singletrack trails of various difficulty and 70 km of marked routes. Currently, there are 4 serviced and maintained trails.
The Azure trail, marked by blue, is for the very beginners. It is a smooth, lightly descending, 10km long trail. According to Martin Vrbický, who works at the park, it can easily be done with a normal bike, no suspensions needed. The Ruby trail, marked by red, is just a little bit more difficult, with sharper turns, but Martin says it could still be done with a normal bike.
The Baron, marked by black, is the next one on the difficulty scale. It has 30 jumps along the way and although none of the jumps have gaps, a bike with good suspensions as well as some technical riding experience are recommended to safely reach the bottom.
Lastly, the Illegal. The name sounds scary, but it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the path. It is indeed the most challenging trail at the park, for which full suspension bikes and full body protective equipment are recommended, but the name just comes from the fact that it used to be an illegal trail, made by locals, which the park now properly maintains.
There are a lot of illegal trails in the mountains and, in the following years, the park plans to legalize and add to their repertoire 5 more of them. An additional chairlift is also under construction on the other side of the mountain and will be opened in the following years.
I was surprised and full of admiration to see young children going down the most difficult trails. And, as if to show me that there is no age too early to start, I saw parents with child trailers attached to their bicycles. I even saw someone who had decided to take their dogs for the ride in their basket. It really is a place for everyone.
4. Rafting
During this trip I got to, for the first time in my life, go rafting. I was excited and nervous at the same time, categorically more excited than nervous. The renting place is just outside the city of Locket and offers different canoes and rafts which are then returned at a different base down the river.
Once we were on the boat, any remaining trace of nervousness simply vanished. For the section we were on, the river Ohře is very calm and, I have to say, what we did was more floating than rafting.
There were a few rocks that needed to be avoided, but for the most part, all we had to do was let the river take us downstream. The sun shone, the birds sang, it was simply a lovely time. There were of course canoes speeding past us, but we were there to enjoy the day and have fun.
At the end of our cruise, we carefully placed the rafts at the specified place and continued on foot. A small restaurant and a playing ground awaited us.
And just a little further down the river, we were greeted by the Svatoš Rocks.
5. Rock climbing
On the banks of the river Ohře lie the Svatoš Rocks, a natural granite formation, made up of rock pillars, prisms and pyramids reaching up to 50 metres. The legend says this was a wedding procession turned to stone by a beautiful nymph.
This is a popular place for tourists, but especially for climbers since the shape of the pillars naturally creates plenty of levers and grips which make it easy to climb without special equipment. I imagine reaching the top offers quite the feeling of accomplishment, I however only managed to get about 3m high.
The guide told us that it is common to see people all the way on top of the pillars and even his children managed to get about halfway up. A challenge for which I shall certainly come better prepared next time.
