---
title: "Kněhyně–Čertův mlýn reserve: nature and the rules of visiting"
description: "The Kněhyně - Čertův mlýn national nature reserve protects mountain forest and the pseudokarst of the Beskids. Its summits, its nature and the rules for visitors."
url: "https://zpusteven.cz/knehyne-certuv-mlyn-reserve"
lang: "en"
---

![Mountain beech wood with moss-covered sandstone blocks detached in the slope, between spruce trunks](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/certuv-mlyn/1280/IMG_3113.avif)

National nature reserve • the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area

# The Kněhyně - Čertův mlýn reserve

The most strictly protected reserve in the Beskids: over 198 hectares of natural mountain forest and the richest pseudokarst in Czechia.

- **the reserve declared:** 1989
- **area (3rd-largest in the PLA):** 198.7 ha
- **Kněhyně and Čertův mlýn:** 2 summits over 1,200 m a.s.l.
- **strict nature reserve:** IUCN Ia

The two highest Beskid summits on the Zlín Region's boundary stand side by side on the ridge of the Radhošťská hornatina – **Kněhyně (1,257 m)** and **Čertův mlýn (1,206 m)**. Only a shallow saddle separates them, and one **national nature reserve** joins them, protecting natural mountain forest and the richest **pseudokarst** in Czechia.

[Čertův mlýn1,206 m](https://zpusteven.cz/en/certuv-mlyn) - The southern summit • the highest point of the Zlín Region · A mountain opening up through deep-seated creep - a rock channel, fissures, pseudokarst caves and, at the end of a hundred-metre trough, Čertův stůl. A legend about the devil's mill and an argument about a dolmen are tied to it. · Open the page →

[Kněhyně1,257 m](https://zpusteven.cz/en/knehyne) - The northern summit • the higher of the two · The higher of the two summits, on the boundary with the Moravian-Silesian Region. Its slopes are where the reserve is richest in nature; the waymarks to the summit itself were removed and the summit is closed. · Open the page →

What is protected here

## Natural mountain forest on steep slopes

The ministry of culture declared the reserve on **19 January 1989** over an area of just under **199 hectares**. It is the **third-largest** in the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area, and in the international classification it belongs among **strict nature reserves (IUCN Ia)**. It lies in the cadastres of Čeladná (Frýdek-Místek district) and Prostřední Bečva (Vsetín district).

What is protected here is a unique remnant of **natural mountain forest on very steep stony slopes** with pseudokarst features. On the flat summits of both mountains grow stunted rowan-spruce forests, and on the steep slopes below them spruce-fir beech woods. The oldest stands are over a century and a half old.

Life in the reserve

## Rare mountain nature

Among the plants the most valuable is the **Moravian monkshood**, which in Czechia grows only in the Moravian-Silesian Beskids, and at the highest levels the rare shrub **rock currant**. In the boulder scree lives the **blind ground beetle** _Duvaliopsis pilosella stobieckii_ - the only blind ground beetle in Czechia, a Carpathian element that lives nowhere else in the country apart from a few Beskids summits.

The **Eurasian lynx** moves through the reserve, and in recent years a brown bear has appeared here more than once. Until the early 1980s the **western capercaillie** bred regularly around Čertův mlýn; the forest still suits it, but disturbance drove it out and only a few birds are left in the Beskids. Since 2017 Lesy ČR has been reinforcing the population with birds from the rearing station at Krásná pod Lysou horou.

Geology and pseudokarst

## What opens up above carries on below

Both mountains stand on soft **Godula sandstone**, which slowly slides under its own weight and tears into fissures - geologists call it **deep-seated creep**. Where the rock opens up, **pseudokarst caves** form: cavities without water or dripstone, of which Czechia has most right here.

There are five caves in the reserve, all on the southern summit. The longest, **Čertova díra**, is 74 metres; a short way from it drops **Kněhyňská propast** - at 57.5 metres the deepest pseudokarst shaft in Czechia. The underground here is among the highest-lying bat hibernation sites in the country.

- **Čertova díra (the longest cave):** 74 m
- **Kněhyňská propast - the deepest pseudokarst shaft in Czechia:** 57.5 m
- **pseudokarst caves on Čertův mlýn:** 5

Rules for visitors

## Stay on the waymarked paths

- The site is a **strict nature reserve** - you walk **on waymarked paths only**. Conservationists removed the path to the summit of Kněhyně in 2007, and the summit is closed.
- The rock formations and caves (Čertův stůl, Čertova díra) lie off the waymarks - do not approach them.
- Gathering, camping and driving in do not belong here. The caves need particular quiet in winter - they are bat hibernation sites.
- There are no refreshments or toilets in the reserve. The nearest facilities are at the **Pustevny** saddle.

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Source: [Kněhyně–Čertův mlýn reserve: nature and the rules of visiting](https://zpusteven.cz/knehyne-certuv-mlyn-reserve) - zPusteven.cz. When citing, please link to the page.