Czantoria Wielka (Velká Čantoryje)

On the summit of Czantoria Wielka (995 m) you can stand with one foot in Poland and the other in the Czech Republic — and at the same time on Poland's main watershed, which divides the basins of the Vistula and the Oder. It is one of the most visited peaks in the Polish Beskids, thanks to a chairlift from Ustroń Polana. Few visitors know that in 1990 a crowd led by the dissident Adam Michnik tore down the border cordon here in protest against the Iron Curtain.

A mountain on the border

Czantoria Wielka is the highest point of the Stożek–Czantoria range in the Silesian Beskids and also the highest peak of the Czech part of these mountains. Its slopes are steep — the drop from the summit to the town of Ustroń is about 630 m — and covered with beech woods and fir-spruce forest. Two nature reserves protect the upper slopes: the Polish "Czantoria" and the Czech "Čantoryje". The summit itself is broad and flat. On the Czech side stands a steel lookout tower with a platform 29 m up (admission charged), and a few hundred metres west is a mountain hut built in 1904 by the German hiking club Beskidenverein.

History: smugglers, rallies and a torn-down cordon

The name first appears in a document of Duke Adam Wenceslaus of Cieszyn dated 3 October 1615; the original form "Czartoryja" is said to mean a place dug up by devils. The state border has crossed the mountain since the end of the First World War. Between the wars smuggling flourished here: shoes and manufactured goods came from Czechoslovakia, food — and occasionally cattle — went the other way. From 1933 communist activists held rallies with football matches on the summit, watched by gendarmes and border guards. In 1990 protesters tore down the border cordon, and the hikers' border crossing finally disappeared on 21 December 2007, when Poland and the Czech Republic joined the Schengen area.

Legends and traces of the past

According to local legend, knights with three hundred horses sleep in a golden chamber inside the mountain, ready to ride out and help Silesia in its darkest hour. The Knights' Trail (Rytířská stezka) on the Czech side, starting in Nýdek, is based on this story. On the western slope, by the trail to Nýdek, is the "Protestants' Stone" — a rock with a carved cross and one of the "forest churches" where Lutheran services were held in secret in the 17th and 18th centuries. Near the trail towards the Beskidek Pass stands a cross commemorating Klement Šťastný, a Czechoslovak soldier who died while the border was being marked out.

How to get up

The "Czantoria" chairlift from Ustroń Polana, built in 1967 and modernised in 2007, takes you to the Stokłosica clearing below the summit; a short forest path leads from the top station to the peak. On foot, the climb from Ustroń Polana takes about 1 h 45 min (1 h 15 min down), and from central Ustroń about 2 h 30 min. The red Main Beskid Trail crosses the summit, and you can continue to Soszów, Stożek or down to Nýdek and Třinec in the Czech Republic. A summer toboggan run operates by the lower station, and in winter a ski run leads down from Stokłosica.

Tripto tip

Allow 2–3 hours for the chairlift, the summit and the tower, or half a day if you hike from Ustroń. On a clear day the tower offers views of the Silesian and Moravian-Silesian Beskids, the Goczałkowice Reservoir and, to the west, Karviná and Ostrava. The tower is on the Czech side, so check prices and opening hours on the operator's website; it may close in strong winds. Chairlift times and fares are listed on the Czantoria cable car website.