--- title: "Šorštýn above Horní Bečva: summit, hafery and a disputed name" description: "Šorštýn is a wooded summit above the Horní Bečva dam. Find out why its name is spelt in different ways, how Šorstýnek fits in and what hafery are." url: "https://zpusteven.cz/en/sorstyn" lang: "en" latitude: 49.4237973 longitude: 18.3345361 --- ![An aerial view of the wooded ridge of Šorštýn above Horní Bečva, the Beskids ridges and a valley of meadows behind](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/sorstyn/1280/DJI_0117.avif) Summit • Horní Bečva • 781 m a.s.l. # Šorštýn A hill of bilberries that even the maps are unsure about. - **Height:** 781 m a.s.l. - **Higher neighbour:** Šorstýnek, 785 m - **What grows here:** bilberry, locally hafery - **Waymarks:** none ## A hill of hafery, with both its name and its height in dispute Wooded Šorštýn rises above the [Horní Bečva dam](https://zpusteven.cz/horni-becva-reservoir). Its summit is covered with **bilberry scrub** (hafery to the locals), which a local association and a summer festival in the village are named after. The sources do not agree on how to spell the name: the maps write Šorštýn, the municipality Šorstýn and Šarštýn - and **the neighbouring spot height is called Šorstýnek, a diminutive, although it is higher**. Its place on the map is uncertain as well: it lies on the boundary between two geomorphological units, and the sources disagree over whether the highest point of the Rožnovská brázda basin is Šorštýn or [Poskla](https://zpusteven.cz/en/poskla), two hundred metres lower. - **the urbarium lists berry picking among the village's livelihoods:** 1676 - **Šorstýnek - a diminutive that is higher:** 785 m - **are named by the sources as the highest point of the Rožnovská brázda:** 3 summits Why come here ### Quiet and hafery The summit is covered with **bilberry scrub**, with small boulders and rock outcrops rising through it. No waymarks lead here - it is a hill for someone who likes to work the route out for themselves. When to come ### When the bilberries ripen It is mostly local people who come here, for the hafery. **The wood usually blocks the view** - it opens onto the slopes with their cottages only in a few places. What to know ### No waymarks to the top The red waymarked route runs round the hill from the dam to the Kladnatá saddle, and from it you turn off into open ground - no waymarks lead to the summit. The climb to the top and back takes **roughly two hours**. Why people come here ## The blue-purple gold of these woods The summit of Šorštýn is covered with bilberry scrub - at Horní Bečva bilberries are called **hafery**. According to the urbarium of **1676**, gathering mushrooms, bilberries and raspberries was among the things the village's 1,385 inhabitants lived on. The picking of hafery never stopped here. The hill's name is carried today by the **Šorstýn association**, which puts on the **Haferobraní** festival with the village, complete with bilberry dumplings and tastings. No path leads up among the low shrubs. **Small boulders and rock outcrops** rise through the bilberry scrub, the wood blocks the view, and the southern slope is cleared by a ski slope. > No household in Horní Bečva should be without hafery and slivovica. > > The motto of K. J. Malina's book “Horní Bečva v zrcadle minulosti” Names and metres ## Šorštýn, Šorstýn, Šarštýn - and Šorstýnek, which is higher The sources do not agree on how the name is written. The maps have **Šorštýn**, the geomorphological survey and the municipality **Šorstýn**, and in the municipal list of buildings the water main of 2001 even appears as **Šarštýn**. The neighbouring spot height half a kilometre to the east, meanwhile, is called **Šorstýnek** - a diminutive, even though it is a few metres **higher** (785 against 781 m). The uncertainty does not end with the spelling. Šorštýn stands on the boundary between **the Moravian-Silesian Beskids and the Rožnovská brázda** - and the surveys disagree over what the highest point of the brázda, the depression between the mountains, actually is. One gives Šorštýn, others summits almost two hundred metres lower. And twelve kilometres away, at Bílá, there is another, quite different **Šorštýn (711 m)**. The highest point of the Rožnovská brázda according to… - **Moravské-Karpaty.cz:** Šorštýn (781 m) in the Vigantická pahorkatina. - **Zeměpisný lexikon ČR:** Požiska (596 m) - the highest named summit of the unit (Demek, Mackovčin, 2006). - **Základní topografická mapa:** An unnamed spot height of 646 m - higher than Požiska, but without a name, so the surveys do not list it. - **Treking.cz:** Poskla (576 m) above Hutisko-Solanec, today a nature monument. Water off the hill ## A ring of springs surrounds Šorštýn The best known is the **Sach spring** on the southern foot, right by road I/35 from Horní Bečva to Bumbálka, at 600 m a.s.l. This strong spring, which local people used to call **Chladná voda**, was properly capped in 1929 during the building of the district road and named after Ing. Jaroslav Sach, then senior technical councillor of the district office at Nový Jičín. The Sach spring is not the only one - more springs rise on the slopes of Šorštýn. Half a kilometre from it stands the **Na Zubčené well**, and further unnamed springs come up in the saddle between the two spot heights. The hill also gives its name to the **Šarštýn - Na Bučkové water main**, which the municipality brought into service in November 2001 - though the match between the name and the springs described above is most likely a coincidence. ### Springs around Šorštýn - **The Sach spring:** The southern foot by road I/35, 600 m a.s.l. A very strong spring with a shelter - you can fill up with water here. - **The Na Zubčené well:** Roughly half a kilometre from the Sach spring, on the paseky below the hill. - **Unnamed springs:** In the saddle between Šorštýn and Šorstýnek and around - they have neither names nor any structure. Visit ## Plan your climb up Šorštýn ### Where exactly it is #### About a kilometre and a half east of the Horní Bečva dam The spot height of **781 m a.s.l.** lies roughly 1.3 km east of the Horní Bečva dam, in the cadastre of Horní Bečva and entirely within the **Beskydy Protected Landscape Area**. Road I/35 to Bumbálka skirts the southern foot of the hill - the Sach spring stands by it, and the shortest climb to the summit, unwaymarked as it is, starts there. ##### Otevřít v mapách [Mapy.com](https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?x=18.3345361&y=49.4237973&z=17&source=coor&id=18.3345361,49.4237973) · [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=49.4237973,18.3345361) ##### Other places nearby [Kudlačena](https://zpusteven.cz/en/kudlacena) · [The lookouts above the quarry](https://zpusteven.cz/viewpoints-above-the-quarry) · [The Horní Bečva dam](https://zpusteven.cz/horni-becva-reservoir) · [The source of the Bečva](https://zpusteven.cz/en/pramen-becvy) · [Benešky](https://zpusteven.cz/en/benesky) · [Kotlová and the settlement of Jezerné](https://zpusteven.cz/en/kotlova) · [Pod Juráškou](https://zpusteven.cz/en/pod-juraskou) · [The Tripoint](https://zpusteven.cz/en/trojmezi) Map of the area ### How to get here The usual starting point is the **car park by the Sach spring** on road I/35 between Horní Bečva and Bumbálka. From there the climb goes up the southern slope; **no waymarked path leads to the summit** and you have to find your own way. The red waymarked route from the dam to the Kladnatá saddle passes round the hill - you can follow it to below the summit and turn off. **Go gently:** you are in the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area and off the waymarked paths. Keep to the forest tracks and rides, leave the wood as it is, and reckon on going at your own risk without waymarks. ### What to know before you go #### How long it takes The climb to the summit and back to the road takes **roughly two hours** - depending on how direct a way you manage to find. #### No waymarks **No waymarked path leads to the summit.** The red route from the dam to the Kladnatá saddle runs round the foot of the hill - from it you turn off into unwaymarked ground, which is usually **harder going**. #### What is at the top **Bilberry scrub, small boulders and rock outcrops.** No viewpoint and no signpost - the wood usually blocks the view. #### Refreshments and toilets At the Sach spring there is **a shelter, water from the spring and a dry toilet**. Na závěr ## Doplňující info a test znalostí ### Rychlá rekapitulace **What are hafery?** The local name for bilberries. They grow on the summit of Šorštýn, and the urbarium of 1676 already lists picking them among the village's livelihoods. The hill gives its name to the association that puts on the Haferobraní festival with the village. **How high is Šorštýn?** The summit spot height is 781 m a.s.l. Neighbouring Šorstýnek, half a kilometre to the east, is a few metres higher still at 785 m - even though its name is a diminutive. **Is Šorštýn really the highest point of the Rožnovská brázda?** It depends on the source. Some surveys give it as such, others put the unit's highest point on Požiska (596 m) or on Poskla (576 m). Šorštýn stands on the edge of the brázda, where the Moravian-Silesian Beskids begin. **Is there a waymarked path up Šorštýn?** No. The red waymarks run round the hill from the Horní Bečva dam to the Kladnatá saddle, but you have to turn off into unwaymarked ground for the summit. The climb is one of the harder ones. --- Source: [Šorštýn above Horní Bečva: summit, hafery and a disputed name](https://zpusteven.cz/en/sorstyn) - zPusteven.cz. When citing, please link to the page.