The Čertův mlýn nature trail
Nature trail • red • easyOn footBy bikeOn cross-country skis
An easy nature trail from Pustevny along the flank of Čertův mlýn to the Martiňák chalet. Nine panels tell two stories: how these mountains slide, and what happened here in the autumn of 1944.
Pustevnystart • 1 018 m a.s.l.At the Pustevny saddle, you can visit Libušín and Maměnka. You can get help with anything you need at the Brána Pusteven information centre. The car park is beside it, and scheduled buses stop there.red waymarks • the first two stops
Set off from the Pustevny saddle along the red waymarks towards Martiňák. The first information panel stands at Pustevny itself; a short stretch of wood brings you to the small lake Mořské oko.
- 1.Pústevně a pústevníciThe name Pustevny recalls the hermits, called pústevníci in the local dialect. Their old dwellings, a beech avenue and a pilgrimage tradition gave the saddle its name.
Mořské oko0,5 km from the start • Stop 2 of the nature trail • 980 m a.s.l.The lake was dug out of a wetland in 1894 by walkers from Pohorská jednota Radhošť, because the Beskids were the only mountains without a lake of their own. It is now a protected pool where three species of newt breed.red waymarks • the other seven stops
Carry on along the red waymarks across the south-western flank of Čertův mlýn, below the Kněhyně – Čertův mlýn reserve and the Klín nature reserve. The trail does not go up to the summit of Čertův mlýn; it ends at the Martiňák chalet in the saddle between Blato and Kladnatá.
- 3.The Kněhyně – Čertův mlýn reserveNatural mountain forest lives at its own pace here: dead and fallen trees too are a refuge for plants, insects and fungi. In the reserve you stay on the waymarked path.
- 4.The devil, the mill and the landslidesLegend explains the mountain as the devil's unfinished mill. In fact the shape of the ridge is changed by landslides and by sandstone blocks pulling apart.
- 5.Partisans on Čertův mlýnIn the autumn of 1944 the 1st Czechoslovak Jan Žižka Partisan Brigade moved here from Slovakia. The woods around gave it temporary cover and a base.
- 6.On helping the partisansThe partisans depended on people from the villages around, who supplied them with food, equipment and hiding places. The panel also recalls local resistance members and the victims of the war.
- 7.On the changing landscapeThe ridge looks like unbroken forest today, yet a few decades ago cattle grazed on it and the landscape was more open.
- 8.On the partisan commandersThe story of the commanders Jan Ušiak, Dajan Murzin and Ivan Stěpanov shows how hard it was to hold a group together in the mountains under constant pursuit.
- 9.Operation TetřevIn November 1944 a large German anti-partisan operation swept the Beskids. It failed to destroy the Jan Žižka brigade.
- The Martiňák chalet7 km from the start • 827 m a.s.l.