Biakło Hill

From a distance, this treeless rocky ridge topped by a cross looks like a miniature of Giewont, the famous peak in the Tatra Mountains, and that's exactly what hikers call it: Little Giewont. Biakło, near Olsztyn just outside Częstochowa, is one of the most distinctive limestone outcrops in the northern Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, known in Poland as the Jura. The walk up from the car park is short, and the reward is a wide view over limestone crags, meadows and pine forests.

A limestone ridge above the meadows

Biakło is a residual hill made of Jurassic limestone. The Olsztyn municipality gives its height as 340 m above sea level, while the national Geoportal map labels it Brodło with a height of 361 m. To the north it adjoins the rocky Lipówek ridge, and to the south it drops to a wooded hollow with the Sokole Góry hills beyond. Meadows surround it on all sides, so its silhouette is visible from far away.

At the southern end of the ridge there's a natural rock window in a limestone block, and east of the summit rises a limestone spire. On the blocks below the top you can see grooves, ribs and small pits, all of them karst features left by rainwater slowly dissolving the rock.

The cross and the climbing rocks

The summit cross was put up in the early 1990s by a pilgrimage of metalworkers from Zawiercie, and it completes the resemblance to Giewont. Biakło belongs to the group known as the Olsztyn Rocks and is popular with climbers. The individual crags have their own names: Garb, Mnich (the Monk), Sfinks (the Sphinx), Blin, Okręt (the Ship) and Z Jałowcem. The summit rock is 16–20 m high and has 13 climbing routes graded III to VI.4+ on the Polish Kurtyka scale. They're long by Jura standards, though mostly easy.

Tripto tip

• Getting there: the easiest approach is from the car park on the Olsztyn–Biskupice road, a short walk from the rocks. The St Giles Trail passes the hill on its way from Olsztyn through Biakło and the Sokole Góry nature reserve to Zrębice.
• Time needed: about an hour to climb up, take in the view and come back down. Add Sokole Góry and Olsztyn Castle for a full-day trip.
• Watch out: limestone gets slippery after rain, and the ridge is exposed to the wind. Don't stand below climbers, because stones can fall.
• Photos: the best "Little Giewont" silhouette is from the meadows on the north side.