Góry Stołowe in the Rain: Three Days Among Rock Labyrinths

The idea for this trip appeared about two months earlier. I suggested to Łukasz that we could use his birthday weekend for a mountain trip. We hadn’t travelled together for a long time, and he hadn’t been on a mountain trail for a while either.

From the beginning, I knew one thing: I wanted to walk another section of the Główny Szlak Sudecki, or GSS. One day I’d like to complete the whole route, so every new section matters.

Góry Stołowe weren’t my first choice. I’d never been there before. It was Łukasz who suggested this direction, and the more I read, the more I liked it.

Szczeliniec also counted towards Korona Gór Polski, but that was only a bonus. The GSS was the real reason Góry Stołowe were on the list.

Before the trip I’d read that Góry Stołowe are table mountains. I’d also read something about old sandstone layers and rock labyrinths. It sounded interesting, but before standing between the rocks below Szczeliniec, I didn’t really understand what that meant in practice.

These mountains turned out to be different from others I’d visited.

Day 1: From Ścinawka Średnia to Szczeliniec

The first day started early.

I got up just before 4:00, so I could calmly get to the tram and catch the train from Warsaw around 5:00. I don’t like being late. Łukasz lives farther away and got up at 4:20, but he also made it. For me, the early start wasn’t a big problem. I usually get up around 5:00 anyway.

Most of the train journey passed in short naps. After changing trains in Kłodzko, we reached Ścinawka Średnia around 12:30 and started walking.

Near the start we saw a board about Mittelsteine, a Gross-Rosen subcamp that operated near Ścinawka Średnia during the Second World War. It was only a short stop, but it added a darker layer to a quiet-looking place.

The mountains were still somewhere ahead, but the trip had already started.

The first several kilometres didn’t look like a typical mountain weekend. We walked mostly through villages, fields and meadows, often on asphalt. It was hot, much warmer than the weather we’d recently had in Warsaw.

The asphalt didn’t bother me too much. It was simply part of this route. That day wasn’t only about reaching summits. It was about getting to the mountains step by step.

After about nine kilometres, we reached Wambierzyce.

I’d read something about the “Lower Silesian Jerusalem” before, but I hadn’t pictured it properly. On the spot, the name made more sense. The basilica was huge, and the village was full of chapels, religious figures and references to biblical places. We entered the basilica, walked around the village for a while, and saw some of the figures from close up. We didn’t climb the Kalwaria, but even this short visit was enough.

Wambierzyce also changed our plan for the day. If we’d stayed on the red trail, we still had about 16 kilometres to walk. Instead, we decided to give ourselves more time in the village and shorten the route by about five kilometres, later taking the yellow and blue trails.

That was one of the better decisions of the day.

After Wambierzyce we continued towards Radków. Once we passed the reservoir, we finally saw the sign for Park Narodowy Gór Stołowych. The trail turned into the forest, the asphalt ended, and the route started to feel green and mountain-like.

At first, what I noticed most were the streams running through the forest. Then the rock formations began to appear more often. We also passed educational boards explaining how the local rock forms were created.

The second part of the day was physically harder than the first. The climbs became steeper, and the heat was still there.

Along the way we passed old-looking sandstone structures. At first I connected them with the Prussian history of the area, because Szczeliniec and Karłów do have that military layer in their past. But I wouldn’t give these structures one simple label here. They may also belong to another layer of local use. For the journey, the important thing was simpler: they were another detail on the trail that made me stop and ask what had been here before.

The final part led towards Szczeliniec itself. The last few hundred metres finally took us through rock corridors between high sandstone walls. That was when Góry Stołowe stopped being a name from an article and became visible. It didn’t look like the kind of summit I was used to. It felt more like walking into a structure made from scattered stone blocks.

We reached the top around 19:00. There was relief, because the forest climb had been tiring, and there were views across other parts of the Sudetes.

Then came the shelter routine: check-in, food, rooms, showers, and the slow movement of people who’d also spent the day outside. The kwaśnica was very good. Because it was a long weekend, Łukasz and I slept in separate rooms for the first night.

My room was exactly what I expected from a mountain shelter: bunk beds, a group of friends, families with teenage children, people moving around, and some singing somewhere nearby in the evening. Not for too long, fortunately. After 21:00 most people were already thinking about sleep.

Looking back at the first day, two things stayed with me most. The first was how hot the beginning of the route was. The second was Wambierzyce. It wasn’t the main goal of the trip, but it became one of the places I’d like to return to properly. The reservoir in Radków also looked like a good idea for a future tent trip: a few days between water and mountains.

And that was only the first day.

Day 2: Fog, Rocks and Peat Bogs

The second day started around 7:00, when someone in my room had an alarm. I could hear people moving even earlier, but that was the moment when I decided to get up. I made coffee, and then Łukasz and I slowly started preparing for the day.

We didn’t hurry. The forecast had said for several days that it would rain, and one look through the window confirmed it. So we delayed a little: breakfast, packing, moving around the shelter, checking things again. At 8:30 the kitchen opened, I ordered breakfast, and after 10:00 we finally left.

That day we walked light. We were staying a second night on Szczeliniec, so we took only one backpack.

First we descended to Karłów and followed the yellow trail. We’d planned to see the ruins of Fort Karola, but the trail turned downward, and by the time we realised what had happened, we were already some way farther on. We didn’t feel like climbing back.

Then we entered the blue trail.

That was the best trail we walked during the whole stay in Góry Stołowe. It was also the moment when I really started to like these mountains.

The path moved between rocks, trees and drops. Roots were exposed on the surface because in many places there wasn’t enough soil for them to go deeper. There were narrow passages, moss-covered blocks, stone corridors and small labyrinths. We kept stopping just to look around.

In many mountains, the view from the summit is the main attraction. Here, the path itself was the attraction.

The weather didn’t make it easy. First rain, then drizzle, then stronger rain again, then lighter rain, more or less until 15:00. The fog should probably have spoiled the views. In practice, it made the route better in a different way. At viewpoints we often saw only a pale wall of cloud, but between rocks and trees the fog fitted the place.

That day we weren’t focused on distant panoramas. We were focused on what was a few metres in front of us: roots, moss, rock walls, wet passages, another turn in the path.

One of the formations looked like a skull.

The educational boards also helped me understand the mountains better. The short version was simple enough: these rocks began as sediment in a shallow Cretaceous sea, and later uplift, weathering and erosion shaped them into the walls, blocks and passages we were walking through.

That’s the short version. The walking version is even simpler: after a few hours among these rocks, the name “table mountains” finally made sense.

Łukasz also noticed something that I’d been missing at first. On many rocks, there were carved symbols: a cross-like shape, not quite a normal Christian cross, maybe closer to a Gothic or Maltese form, together with numbers. We saw more than a dozen over the three days.

Later I found that many such marks in Góry Stołowe are old boundary or forest signs, connected with former estate, administrative or land divisions. The exact meaning may depend on the specific mark, so I’d still describe them carefully. But they weren’t random scratches.

Later, the blue trail ended and we joined the yellow one. This section was much less spectacular. It was a wide fire road and, after several hours of moving through rock passages, felt quite ordinary. At the same time, it was also a useful rest from the constant zigzagging.

Then the trail led us through peat bogs. We reached Skalne Grzyby later and made a longer stop there. There was a small shelter, and around the eleventh kilometre we sat down for sandwiches and hot coffee. We were wet and cold by then, and that was exactly what we needed.

The coffee didn’t magically warm us, but it helped. We rested for a while and could continue.

The rock mushrooms themselves made a smaller impression on me than I expected. Maybe I’d already seen too many good rock passages earlier that day. Maybe I was tired and waiting for the shelter. We also skipped some of the named mushroom rocks because we didn’t go in their direction.

From there we returned to the red trail of Główny Szlak Sudecki and started walking back towards Szczeliniec.

After the break, the body came back to life. Some time later the rain stopped as well. When we realised we were already warm and drying out, we decided to extend the route slightly. Instead of returning by the shortest way, we went around Mały Szczeliniec on the blue trail and then climbed back to the shelter on the yellow one.

It probably added only fifteen minutes. Since the weather had finally improved, it felt worth doing.

On the mountain roads and junctions, we also noticed quite a few signs for cross-country skiing and cycling routes. I hadn’t expected so many of them here. With forests, plateaus and gentler profiles than in many other mountains, Góry Stołowe started to look like a place worth returning to not only for walking. Maybe one day in winter for cross-country skiing. Maybe another time in summer for the reservoir in Radków.

Back at the shelter, we checked into the same room. Our things were already there. Dinner, shower, tea, and some time in the dining room. There were fewer people than the previous evening. The atmosphere was calmer. After the whole day outside, we didn’t last long. Around 21:00 we were already in bed.

Looking back, this was the day of views without views.

In theory, the fog should have ruined it. In practice, it showed us a different side of Góry Stołowe. Maybe that’s why I remember this day better than many sunny trails.

Day 3: From Szczeliniec to Kudowa-Zdrój

On the third walking day, we didn’t get up in a hurry. We already knew the kitchen opened at 8:30, so there was no reason to rush. We didn’t sleep that long anyway. After 7:00 some people in the room started moving around, and I also couldn’t really sleep anymore. How long can you sleep? In the past I could’ve shown how long, but apparently not this time.

In the morning we considered entering the tourist route on Szczeliniec, but even from a distance we could see the crowds. Saturday, good weather after a rainy Friday, and a long weekend had done their work. It felt better not to spend the morning standing in a queue or squeezing through traffic on the trail.

After breakfast we started down on the red trail. In theory, this was supposed to be mostly a downhill day. But experience says that in the mountains it’s never only downhill. There were still several climbs where we had to work. The heat also returned to something closer to Thursday.

The views were good. First we saw Szczeliniec from below, then more panoramas opened towards both Szczeliniec and the surrounding summits. We weren’t rushing. We were just walking and enjoying the mountains.

We planned a longer stop at Błędne Skały. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there were no tickets left.

It wasn’t a huge surprise. Many people who’d skipped Friday because of rain had probably moved their visit to Saturday. The good weather did the rest. I thought for a moment that I should’ve bought tickets online earlier, but somehow I hadn’t connected all the facts: car park near the attraction, long weekend, famous place, first sunny day after rain.

We didn’t regret it too much. Błędne Skały were more of a point on the route than the main goal of the trip. The previous day’s blue trail had already given us the rock passages and Góry Stołowe feeling we’d come for.

At Błędne Skały I finally had the moment I’d been waiting for since the beginning of the trip. I took out the gas stove I’d carried in my backpack since Thursday. The stove has its own history. I bought it in 2011 before a planned bike trip to New Zealand with Pedro. We set it up, boiled water and made coffee.

The coffee tasted like any other coffee. That wasn’t the point. The point was the small ritual: sitting for several minutes, without hurry, with hot coffee and mountains around us.

After the break, we continued on the red trail. From one viewpoint we could already see Kudowa-Zdrój below. I still didn’t think of it as the end, more as the next stage of the day.

We reached Kudowa around 14:00. We left our backpacks at the hotel reception and went straight to Kaplica Czaszek, or Skull Chapel in Czermna. I’d never been there before. It’s an interesting and unusual place, although I expected it to make a slightly stronger impression on me.

A nice small situation happened there. Earlier on the trail, we’d passed two guys speaking English. Later we happened to stand near them in the queue for the chapel. When our turn came, I offered to summarise the guide’s talk for them. They were happy with that, so for a short time I became an unofficial guide.

Kaplica Czaszek is in Czermna, now part of Kudowa-Zdrój. Its official history says the work of arranging the chapel took eight years, from 1776 to 1784. Today the walls and vault are covered with about 3,000 skulls and bones, while more remains are kept in the crypt below. The site gives the total as about 30,000 people.

After the visit we returned to the hotel, took a quick shower, had dinner and went for a walk through Park Zdrojowy.

The hotel was an old villa, renovated and converted into accommodation, about 300 metres from the park.

Park Zdrojowy was a completely different landscape from the rocks and forests: green, ordered, with spa architecture and paths made for walking slowly. The park was founded in the eighteenth century near the mineral springs, at the foot of Parkowa Góra, and expanded especially at the beginning of the twentieth century.

On Sunday we returned home by train.

Summary

It was a very successful trip.

I managed to bring Łukasz back to the mountains for a few days. I also walked another section of the Główny Szlak Sudecki and added another summit towards Korona Gór Polski. Over three days there was some talking, some shared silence on the trail, some rain, some sun, and many interesting places along the way.

Góry Stołowe turned out to be more interesting than I expected. I came partly because I wanted to continue the GSS. I left thinking I’d like to return for Góry Stołowe themselves.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the summits, but the rocks: narrow passages, mossy labyrinths, strange forms, flat tops, exposed roots, and small carved signs we still need to understand. These are mountains that invite wandering and checking another corner more than simply collecting height.

There were also the usual small trail absurdities. At one point, a sign showed 1 hour 20 minutes to the destination. After about 20 minutes of walking, the next one showed 1 hour 40. That also belongs to the trip.

There are reasons to go back. We didn’t see Błędne Skały. We didn’t solve the mystery of the carved marks. We passed historical traces that ask for more attention. There are cycling routes, cross-country skiing routes, the reservoir in Radków, Wambierzyce, and more trails through the rock labyrinths.

I came home thinking: I should return there.