Krkonoše National Park

Listen for a moment. Up here, the wind is rarely silent. It moves through the low, twisted pines and across open grass that bends in long silver waves. The air smells of resin, wet stone and cold moss. Underfoot, the path may be granite slabs or old wooden boardwalk, damp even on a sunny day. Welcome to Krkonoše, the Giant Mountains, a long ridge on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland.

The name is old, and nobody is fully certain where it comes from. In German, these hills are the Riesengebirge, which also means the Giant Mountains. The Polish call them Karkonosze. Whatever the origin, the mountains earn the name in this country. This is the highest range in the Czech Republic. And this protected landscape, created in 1963, is the oldest national park in the country. Its administration is based in Vrchlabí, a town at the southern foot of the hills.

Here is the first surprise. The highest ground here feels more like northern Scandinavia than Central Europe. Above the tree line, you are standing in arctic-alpine tundra. It is a cold, open landscape left behind after the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated, some cold-loving plants and insects survived only on these high, wind-scoured ridges. They are islands of the far north, stranded in the middle of the continent.

As you climb, the forest changes in clear bands. Lower down are beech and mixed woods. Higher up, dark spruce takes over. Then the spruce thins and grows shorter, until it gives way to dense mats of dwarf mountain pine. Locals call this pine kleč. It grows low and sideways, close to the ground, and survives the wind and the heavy snow. Walking through it feels like wading through a green, knee-high sea.

Now look up toward the highest point, Sněžka. At 1,603 metres, it is the summit of the whole Czech Republic. Its name comes from the Czech word for snow. The mountain is a steep, rocky cone, and the Czech–Polish border runs right across its top. On the summit stands a small round chapel dedicated to Saint Lawrence, built in the seventeenth century. Beside it are the unusual disc-shaped buildings of a Polish weather observatory, which look almost like something from science fiction.

Many visitors reach the summit from Pec pod Sněžkou, a mountain village on the Czech side. Some climb on foot, while others take the chairlift and cable car. Either way, the weather can change fast up there. A clear morning can turn into thick fog and driving rain before lunch. The mountain rewards patience. When the clouds do part, the view stretches far across Bohemia on one side and Silesia, now in Poland, on the other.

Here is the second surprise. One of Europe's great rivers begins in these hills. The Elbe, called the Labe in Czech, rises on a high, marshy meadow near the Polish border. From here, it flows across the Czech Republic and through Germany. It passes cities such as Dresden and Hamburg, and finally reaches the North Sea. At the symbolic spring, a stone wall carries the coats of arms of towns along the river's long route. It is a modest spot for the start of such a long journey.

The young Elbe does not stay quiet for long. Below the spring meadow, the land drops sharply into deep valleys with steep walls. These valleys were carved by glaciers during the Ice Age. They are called cirques, which are bowl-shaped valleys scooped out by ice. Waterfalls pour over their edges. The Pančava falls, which tumble into the Elbe valley, are often called the highest waterfall in the Czech Republic. In early summer, after the snowmelt, the noise of the water fills the gorge.

As you walk, you may notice something else. On some slopes, grey dead trunks stand among young green trees. This is a scar from the late twentieth century. During the 1970s and 1980s, heavy industry in the border region of Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany produced severe air pollution. Acid rain killed large areas of spruce forest across these mountains. Since then, the air has become much cleaner, and foresters have replanted with more varied species. The young forest you see is part of that slow recovery.

No walk here is complete without the mountain spirit. Legend has it that the ridges belong to Krakonoš, known in German as Rübezahl. In the old stories, he is a bearded giant who controls the weather. He punishes the greedy and the cruel, and he helps the poor and the honest. Locals say that sudden fog or a storm from nowhere is his mood changing. You will see his figure carved in wood, painted on signs and sold as souvenirs in almost every village.

The human history of these hills is also written in wood. Scattered across the high meadows are mountain huts, called boudy in Czech. Many began as simple farmsteads, where families made hay and kept cattle on the summer pastures. Over time, as walkers and skiers arrived, many huts became guesthouses and mountain restaurants. Today, a warm bowl of soup in one of these huts is a small ritual for hikers. It is also a welcome break from the wind.

The park is not a wilderness without rules. It protects fragile plants that can be damaged by a single careless step. In the highest zones, walkers must stay on marked trails. This is especially important in the tundra, where plants grow very slowly and recover over many years. Since 1992, the Czech and Polish parks together have formed a cross-border biosphere reserve under UNESCO. Two countries work to protect one shared mountain range. The border is only a line of small stone markers on the ridge.

So take a moment now, wherever you are standing. Feel the temperature of the air on your face. Notice how low the pines grow, and which way they lean. Listen for water somewhere below you, perhaps a stream on its way to the Elbe. Look at the colour of the rock and the lichen covering it. These mountains change with every hour of light and every shift of the wind. As you walk on, watch the sky. Krakonoš, the locals would say, is always watching you too.