Pustevny – Čertův mlýn – Kněhyně reserve
Ridge route • red • moderateOn foot
The second ridge walk from the Pustevny saddle: red waymarks towards Martiňák, past the small lake Mořské oko into the summit area of Čertův mlýn and on to Kněhyňská louka below the closed summit of Kněhyně. The other side of the ridge belongs to the walk Pustevny – Radhošť – Rožnov pod Radhoštěm.
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 • towards Martiňák
Set off from the Pustevny saddle along the red waymarks; the signpost points to Martiňák. Before long you pass the small lake Mořské oko, hidden in the wood a little below the ridge.
Mořské oko0,5 km from the start • 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 summit area
Carry on along the red waymarks through the saddle below Tanečnice into the summit area of Čertův mlýn. From here you are inside a national nature reserve - do not leave the waymarked paths. Čertův stůl lies away from them; you can look at it in a 360° photo.
variant • red waymarks along the hillside • 7 km
A detour on the nature trail to MartiňákFrom Mořské oko you can leave the ridge and follow the Čertův mlýn nature trail along the hillside to the Martiňák chalet. There is no direct service back to Pustevny from there.
Čertův mlýn4 km from the start • 1 206 m a.s.l.The highest mountain in the Zlín Region (1,206 m) is slowly opening up through deep-seated creep: the summit tears into fissures, and below it lies a hundred-metre rock channel with Čertův stůl at its end - a stone slab on two plinths. No marked trail leads to the table, and the national nature reserve may be crossed only on waymarked routes.red waymarks • the saddle between the summits
Follow the red waymarks down towards Kněhyně into the saddle between the two summits, to Kněhyňská louka by the junction Kněhyně - sedlo (1,146 m). On the way you pass the memorials of autumn 1944 and the U Partyzánky spring. Do not go up to the summit of Kněhyně - it forms the core of the reserve and is closed.
Kněhyně4,5 km from the start • 1 146 m a.s.l.Kněhyně (1,257 m) is the third highest mountain in the Beskids and the higher of the two summits of the Kněhyně – Čertův mlýn national nature reserve. The summit itself forms the core of the reserve: conservationists closed the trail to it in 2007 and entry is banned.red waymarks • the end of the walk
A few dozen metres further along the red waymarks towards Kněhyně, the masonry of the lost Greiffka hunting lodge stands right beside the path.
The Greiffka hunting lodge4,5 km from the startThe dry stone masonry of a ground floor in the saddle between Kněhyně and Čertův mlýn. Local accounts say a hunting lodge stood here in the second half of the 19th century, named after Greiff, the manager of the archbishopric forests.
A spring and memorials of autumn 1944
In the autumn of 1944 the woods below Kněhyně hid the bunkers of the 1st Czechoslovak Jan Žižka Partisan Brigade, and the waymarked path still passes reminders of that time. In the saddle by the signpost stands a stone with a plaque to the brigade's fighting, and a little further along the route are the U Partyzánky spring and a memorial to the partisan Růžena Valentová, a teacher from Olomouc.
The original spring and cairn lay deeper inside the reserve, on a dead-end path off the waymarked route. It was the way most people used to reach the core of the reserve, so the waymarkers closed it; the new spring and the new memorial were built right beside the main route. Keep to it.
