Adršpach-Teplice Rocks
Interesting facts
- In 1824 a forest fire smouldered among the rocks for several weeks and destroyed the entire forest around the rock city.
- For centuries local people entered the maze of towers only when they needed a hiding place from danger.
- The first recorded ascents came in 1923, when climbers of the German club K.V. Lössnitz reached the tops of towers such as the King and the Lovers.
- Local rules forbid adding new protection to established routes, so modern climbers face the towers on exactly the terms the pioneers did.
- Czech law bans climbing in national nature reserves, so since 1992 the national mountaineering federation has had to negotiate a special exemption for these rocks.
- The towers have become a stage for rock jumping, a high-risk sport in which climbers leap through the air from one sandstone summit to another.
- The Teplice rock city alone has around 70 named formations, among them a vaulted chamber known as the Rock Temple.
- Among the stranger names are the Handle Jug, Grandfather's Chair and Rübezahl's Toothpick, after the mountain spirit of the nearby Giant Mountains.
- The reserve falls into IUCN category Ia, the strictest of the international classes of protected area.
Why it is worth it
The Adršpach-Teplice Rocks in north-eastern Bohemia are the largest rock city in Central Europe: a labyrinth of sandstone towers, walls and gorges formed when a continuous plateau of sandstone, laid down in a Cretaceous sea, was split by tectonic movement and then carved by water, frost and wind. The result is two separate rock cities, Adršpach and Teplice, divided by the deep, seven-kilometre canyon called Wolf's Gorge. Some of the towers rise to around 90 metres.
In the Adršpach rocks the paths run through narrow clefts between pillars, past a waterfall and two small lakes. The formations have names that go back centuries: the Mayor and his Wife, the Lovers, the Sugar Loaf, Rübezahl's Organ. The Teplice rocks are more austere, with sheer walls along the Skalní potok stream, the ridge of the Čáp at 786 metres, and a rocky maze of plateaus and passages. Three medieval rock castles, Střmen, Adršpach and Skály, stand in the area in ruins.
The rocks have drawn visitors for a long time. Nature lovers from Silesia came around 1700, Goethe visited in 1790, the first proper paths were laid in the early nineteenth century and inscriptions in several languages on the rocks record the travellers who followed. The area has been a national nature reserve since 1933 and lies within the Broumovsko Protected Landscape Area. It is also one of the birthplaces of sandstone climbing: German climbers made the first ascents of the main towers in the 1920s, and a strict local climbing ethic still limits the use of fixed protection. Peregrine falcons nest on the cliffs, and some areas are closed to climbers and walkers to protect them. Scenes of the 2005 film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were shot here.
Getting there
The rocks lie between the villages of Adršpach and Teplice nad Metují, which are on the Trutnov-Teplice nad Metují railway line; circular paths start from both. The nearest Czech town is Náchod, 21.9 km away; Boguszów-Gorce across the border in Poland is 17.2 km away. The nearest airport is Pardubice (PED), 71.5 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Adršpach-Teplice Rocks are a set of sandstone formations in Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. They are named after two nearby municipalities: Adršpach, and Teplice nad Metují.
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