A mountain in the Kněhyně – Čertův mlýn reserve • Prostřední Bečva • 1,206 m a.s.l.
The highest mountain in the Zlín Region is slowly tearing apart below its summit. At the end of that tear stands Čertův stůl - a shape people could explain to themselves only as the devil's work.
Čertův mlýn is the highest mountain in the Zlín Region (1,206 m a.s.l.). Its summit is tearing apart through deep-seated creep, and two striking features are left behind: a hundred-metre rock channel like a mill race cut in stone, and a short way from it a stone slab on two plinths. People could not explain them - so the channel was given to the devil's mill and the slab to his table. Both were made by the same settling mountain.
Why come here
Čertův mlýn (1,206 m) is the highest summit in the Zlín Region and in the Vsetín district. The marked trail runs right across the disintegrating summit - along the way you see rock outcrops, fissures and detached blocks.
When to go
The summit's fractured rock is easiest to see in spring before the leaves come out and in autumn. In winter the ridge is demanding and after rain it is slippery. Moving through the reserve at night is not advisable - it belongs to the animals.
Not to be missed
A hundred-metre stone trough like a mill race cut in rock, in fact created as the blocks of the disintegrating ridge moved apart. The legend saw the devil's work in it; Čertův stůl stands at its end.
The mountain tears, the stone settles - and people told the tale so long that it produced a devil, a mill and a bride.
A mountain opening up
Čertův mlýn is made of Godula sandstones - a hard flysch rock in which sandstones prevail over softer claystones. A firm slab on top with more yielding beds below is the recipe for an unstable giant.
The result is a slow loosening of the summit through deep-seated creep: the massif slides, the rock tears into fissures and detached blocks, and caves and shafts form along their surfaces.
The mountain tears most conspicuously a short way below the summit: a stone trough some hundred metres long runs southwards, created as rock blocks moved apart. Čertův stůl stands at its end.
Anyone who reaches the summit today is standing on a mountain that is still opening up. The scattered boulders, the trough as if carved, the slab on plinths - all of it is the work of one slow process. To people long ago it made no sense, so they found a different culprit.
The mountain's underground
Čertův mlýn holds five pseudokarst caves between 5 and 74 metres long. They were formed as the rock opened during the loosening of the summit.
The largest is Čertova díra, about 150 metres south-south-west of the summit: 74 metres long and 30 metres deep, markedly vertical, with two entrances. A short way on, already at neighbouring Kněhyně, Kněhyňská propast drops into the depths - at 57.5 metres the deepest pseudokarst shaft in Czechia.
Where nextCyrilka Cave →Pseudokarst and bat hibernation belong here too - but the caves here are closed to the public. The theme is therefore developed by Cyrilka one ridge over, where the entrance can be reached.The legend
A farmer's wife below the mountain had a daughter of marrying age whom nobody wanted - until one day she flew into a rage and said the girl might as well marry the devil himself. Soon afterwards a young huntsman came to the spinning evening, boasted of his wealth and asked for the daughter. The mother agreed on one condition: within forty-eight hours, before the cock crowed a second time, he would build a mill up on the summit ready to grind at once.
An old uncle crossed himself at once and asked whether they had not noticed a horse's hoof. Since morning, he said, a beggar had been going round the Bečva valleys buying up every cockerel. So they hid one - and when the mill was almost finished on the second night, the cockerel crowed after midnight. The devil fell and never finished the work. All that is said to remain of the unfinished mill are boulders scattered across the summit (the building stone) and the rock channel along which the water was to run to the wheel - that hundred-metre trough below the summit.
A dolmen, or the mountain's work?
The six-and-a-half-tonne slab lies on two stone plinths so regularly that it invites the thought of human work. It is spoken of as a pagan sacrificial table and as a prehistoric astronomical device - but most often as a dolmen, the prehistoric “stone table” found all over Europe.
The astronomical interpretation was favoured by Associate Professor Jan Folprecht, whose explanation even reached the information board at the summit: he sees it as a megalithic structure, perhaps used for rituals. He also offers an observation that sounds tempting - the table's axis points to Radhošť, and from the hollow one could watch the sun set over its summit at the equinoxes. The archaeological research that would confirm this, however, has never taken place.
The other camp sees the slab as the mountain's own work - supported by the same evidence as for the trough a little higher up: a fractured summit, detached blocks of Godula sandstone and chance arranging them into the shape of a table. Fissures and tumbled blocks are everywhere here, making a natural origin easy to believe. No one knows for certain yet, and perhaps that is just as well: the riddle has kept the mountain alive for generations.
Timeline
the Cretaceous
Godula sandstones are laid down in the Carpathian sea - the hard flysch rock the whole massif of Čertův mlýn is made of.
the folding of the Carpathians
The rocks are compressed into folds and thrust over one another - forming the ridge of the Radhošťská hornatina with summits above 1,200 m.
to this day
The summit slowly cracks and slides: fissures, landslides and caves appear. A hundred-metre rock trough runs down from it, with Čertův stůl at its end.
19 January 1989
The Kněhyně – Čertův mlýn national nature reserve is created (just under 199 ha) - the third largest reserve in the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area.
2001
Associate Professor Jan Folprecht publishes his interpretation of Čertův stůl as a megalithic structure oriented towards Radhošť. The text reaches the information board at the summit.
2002
Conservationists open a 7 km trail with nine stops from Martiňák to Pustevny.
The nature trailBeskids passport
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Head east from the saddle, with Radhošť behind you. A short way from the junction by Libušín, the small lake Mořské oko lies hidden in the forest – a refuge for newts and other amphibians.
The walk to the junction with a rest area is easy. The red-marked trail then climbs more steeply for the last kilometre and a half or so along a stony forest path. Just below the junction are clearings kept open by grazing sheep for three hundred years.
The red-marked trail runs across the summit of the highest mountain in the Zlín Region (1,206 m), which is accessible on the marked trail. A short way below, at the end of a 100-metre fissure, lies Čertův stůl, a stone slab on two plinths. No marked trail leads to it, however, and visitors must stay on marked trails in the reserve, so you can view it in the 360° panorama. The remains of the Greiffka hunting lodge also stand beside the red-marked trail, about 497 m to the north.
You can continue towards Kněhyně, the higher summit in the national nature reserve. Visitors must stay on marked trails; none leads to the summit of Kněhyně, which is closed. The longer option is shown with a dashed line on the map.
Mind the reserve's rules: no marked trail leads to Čertův stůl, and visitors must stay on marked trails in the reserve. That is why this page has a 360° panorama. You can carry on along the waymarks to Kněhyňská louka; that option is dashed on the map.
The area is a national nature reserve of the strictest category. Visitors must stay on marked trails only - leaving them risks a fine and damage to the sensitive habitats the reserve protects.
About 3 km one way from Pustevny, roughly an hour and a quarter on foot. The last stretch climbs a stony forest path.
It is windy up here and the weather changes faster than in the valley. After rain the stones and roots are slippery; in winter the ridge is demanding and the days short.
Refreshments and toilets are at the Pustevny saddle, about three kilometres away along the red waymarks.
The Eurasian lynx lives here and bats hibernate in the caves. Keep your dog on a lead, leave loud music at home and stay away from the cave entrances.
A stone slab detached at the end of the hundred-metre rock channel below the summit of Čertův mlýn (1,206 m, the highest mountain in the Zlín Region). It was created by the same deep-seated creep that is tearing the mountain into fissures.
That is only a hypothesis put forward by Associate Professor Jan Folprecht in 2001, which reached the information board at the summit. No archaeological research has taken place - it is not known for certain whether it is a natural formation or a structure.
No, it lies off the marked trail inside a national nature reserve where movement is allowed only on marked routes. The page therefore shows the table in a 360° panorama.
Yes, the mountain has pseudokarst caves and a bat hibernation site - described in detail on the Cyrilka Cave page.
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Čertův mlýn is only part of a larger whole. The related places and their stories are on the following pages.
The whole reserve together
The reserve also hides Kněhyňská propast - at 57.5 metres deep, the deepest pseudokarst shaft in Czechia.
Přejít na stránku →The sister summit of the same reserve
Kněhyně (1,257 m), the higher neighbour of Čertův mlýn - its summit forms the core of the reserve and is closed to visitors.
Přejít na stránku →The same process, one ridge over
A fissure opened by the sliding of the Radhošť ridge - Czechia's second longest pseudokarst cave. A bat hibernation site, like Čertova díra; you can walk up to the entrance, which is closed by a metal grille.
Přejít na stránku →
Walls beyond the summit
The remains of the archbishopric forests' hunting lodge in the saddle beyond the summit - about 497 m north of the table along the red waymarks, with a 360° viewpoint of its own.
Přejít na stránku →A stop on the way
A small lake that Beskid walkers dug themselves in 1894 - today a protected pool with three species of newt. It lies on the red trail a short way from Pustevny, on the way to Čertův mlýn.
Přejít na stránku →
The starting point of the walk
The car park, the chairlift and the bus - the logistics of the whole walk are handled by the Pustevny saddle. From there it is just under three kilometres to the summit.
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