Stożek Wielki

Stożek Wielki (Czech: Velký Stožek, "big cone") is a 978 m summit in the Silesian Beskids on the Polish–Czech border. It belongs to the Stożek and Czantoria Range, which forms the watershed between the Vistula and the Oder and carries the state border. Within the range Stożek Wielki stands between Stożek Mały and Kyrkawica and is the third-highest after Wielka Czantoria and Kiczory. The Polish slopes belong to the town of Wisła in Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship; the Czech slopes to the municipalities of Návsí and Nýdek. The nearest hamlets of Wisła, Bystre and Mraźnica, lie 2.5–3.5 km away.

The slopes of the summit dome drop steeply to the west, north and east; only to the south does the ridge run almost level towards Kyrkawica. Seen from the north, the mountain really is a fairly regular cone. It is built of Godula sandstone. The longest side ridge of the range, the so-called arm of Łączka and Filipka, leaves the summit to the north-west, and a short spur to the north-east divides the valleys of the Łabajów and Jerzy streams.

How to get there / trails

The red Main Beskid Trail crosses the summit. On the Polish side a dense network of marked paths leads up:

• red from Wielka Czantoria via the Beskidek Pass and Soszów Wielki — 2 h 10 min (2 h 35 min back);
• red from Barania Góra via the Przysłop hut and the Kubalonka Pass — 5 h 25 min;
• green from Wisła-Głębce up the Łabajów valley — 1 h 30 min (1 h 15 min down), blue from Głębce via Mraźnica — 2 h;
• yellow from Wisła-Dziechcinka up the Dziechcinka valley — 2 h 05 min, blue from the same place via Kobyla — 2 h 25 min;
• yellow and red from Jaworzynka-Trzycatek via Kiczory — 4 h 10 min.

From the Czech side: red and yellow from Nýdek (3 h 50 min), yellow and blue from Jablunkov via the Groníček saddle (2 h 25 min), and the blue border trail from Wielka Czantoria (2 h 15 min).

The view from the top

From the summit itself the views are fragmentary — towards the Moravian-Silesian Beskids. A much wider panorama opens from the hut: over the Silesian and Żywiec Beskids and the Tatras.

Nature and history

The massif is forested: mostly beech and beech-spruce on the west side, mostly spruce on the east. Just below the summit on the west is a rock outcrop with an overhanging slab — "a large rocky promontory shaped like a boat", as Jan Galicz, a leading tourism activist in Cieszyn Silesia, described it in 1891. The cliff beneath it is not natural: stone for building the hut was quarried here. A longer rock wall with towers, pulpits and a boulder field runs at 870–890 m along the very steep western slopes, already on the Czech side; it ends in an overhanging block up to 10 m high, under which a dozen or so people can shelter. Ten blocks 2–3 m high are used for bouldering, with 21 problems graded from 4 to 7a+ on the French scale.

Almost below the summit, about 140 m away, stands the PTTK hut "Stożek", opened on 9 July 1922 on the initiative of the Polish Tourist Society "Beskid" in the presence of more than four thousand guests. It was the first hut built by Poles in the Polish Silesian Beskids — earlier ones had been built by the German Beskidenverein. Until both countries joined the Schengen Area in 2007, there was a tourist border crossing on the summit.

Safety, season and rules

The mountain is accessible all year. A ski centre with a chairlift and over 3 km of runs operates on the eastern slope, and downhill mountain-bike races are held here in summer — keep to the footpaths and stay off the runs. Take care near the rocks on the Czech side: the slopes are very steep. The mountain lies outside national parks.

Rescue on the Polish side is GOPR: 985 or +48 601 100 300; on the Czech side the Mountain Rescue Service (Horská služba): 1210; 112 works everywhere.

Photos: Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0; Krzysztof Dudzik-Górnicki (User:ToSter), CC BY 3.0; Krzysztof Dudzik-Górnicki (User:ToSter), CC BY 3.0; Micio at Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0; Pborys, CC BY-SA 4.0; Wlodek k1, CC BY-SA 3.0; Original uploader was David Szymik at cs.wikipedia., Public domain — Wikimedia Commons.