Keprnik

What a day of adventures! We began in lovely sunshine when we boarded the first of two trains in Sumperk, travelling to Tomas’s home village of Ruda nad Moravu, where we changed to a train which took us to Šerák. As the train wound its way up the mountain we entered low cloud and, by the time we arrived at the station, it was overcast and drizzling.

Our first stop was to visit Marketa’s summer scout camp, a twenty minute walk through the forest to the fields where the boys and girls were pitched in separate camps. Both Marketa and Tomas are Scouts and Leaders and this organisation is highly thought of in Czech. We were impressed with the skills of the leaders at the girls’ camp, the oldest being 23. Several were cooking lunch whilst another was waterproofing the roof over the dining tent and another was erecting ‘the gate’ on to the site. A number of the youngsters wanted to speak English with us and Tony acquired a support group of three young girls, exasperated because he couldn’t pronounce the Czech words. The hospitality was wonderful and we stayed for a two course lunch before continuing on our day hike.
Sadly the rain and low cloud continued as we climbed aboard the first of two long chairlifts ascending to the ridge. We were quite cold when we arrived at the top and decided to make use of the restaurant to eat and to wait out the wet front, then it was out on to the ridge, heading to Keprnik and in to blue skies!

The summit of Keprnik attained, we continued along the ridge to the turning for U Vozky. At this point Marketa told us about the legend of the rocks at U Vozky. Apparently they are meant to be a man, his horse and cart and his load of bread. His load stuck on the path and so he unloaded his bread to move it. As bread is provided by God, this was a definite no no and he was turned to stone!

The good weather continued in to the evening as we picked up a deer trail off the main path and made our way to a mountain cabin, our destination for the night. It was much better kitted out than I expected, despite no water or electricity. Friends of Marketa’s had stayed there last week and left us a surprise, a bottle of wine and various foodstuffs with which Marketa made us a warming bowl of soup with egg.

The views from the cabin were splendid across the Jeseniky Mountains but it was time for bed after a full day. We pulled blankets and pillows down from the rafters, out of the reach of mice, got out our sleeping bags and tucked up for the night.