Back to Sněžník

The summer rematch for a fogged-out winter visit: over the meadow top of Javorský vrch to Jílové, then steeply up Děčínský Sněžník — the largest table mountain in the country — and down to the Elbe at Děčín.

Local trains between Ústí nad Labem and Děčín stop at Choratice, a small halt on the left bank of the Elbe with the hills starting right behind it. From Prague you can be there by nine with one change. The route turns its back on the river immediately and spends the first hour climbing west through the woods.

The first summit is Javorský vrch, around km 7 — open grass instead of trees, wide views, and across the valley to the north the first look at where the day is headed: the long flat rim of the table mountain. The descent from it drops you gradually toward Jílové, and just before town a rock outcrop lays the whole afternoon out below — the town in the valley floor, Sněžník’s edge behind it.

Jílové, at km 14, is the place to eat: pubs and shops a short step off the route, and a moated château by the square if you want ten minutes of sightseeing with your beer. Eat here rather than counting on the summit — more on that below.

What follows is the hardest stretch of the day: some 460 m of climbing from the valley floor to the plateau, and the gradient does not pretend otherwise. The route goes up through Sněžník village and gains the top from the west.

Děčínský Sněžník is why this route exists. My first visit, in winter, showed nothing but the inside of a cloud; in August the view runs from the Krušné hory across the border sandstones to the cones of the České středohoří, and the lookout tower is worth the climb on top of the climb. The summit restaurant is the one thing to skip — on my visit the staff were unfriendly and the prices high for food a notch below what you would expect even up here. Carry your own and spend the money on the tower instead.

The rest is downhill — nearly 600 m of it spread over the last ten kilometres, off the plateau and down the long wooded slopes into Děčín. The route ends at the main station, and that is a genuine reward: Děčín sits on the Prague–Dresden main line, and the Berlin expresses run direct to Prague, usually with a dining car — dinner on the way home while the Elbe rolls past the window.