Divoká Šárka

Divoká Šárka is a beautiful nature preserve just west of where I live (in Prague 6). It's called Wild Šárka after a legend about a female warrior who, at the bequest of her leader, must seduce and kill Ctirad (the champion of the male warriors). It's unclear whether she kills him herself or her female compatriots kill him, but apparently she was so wrought with guilt that she flung herself off one of the several cliffs (that particular cliff is called Dívčí Skok, the Girl's jump).

Thus far I've been to the area twice; the first was a nice and somewhat strenuous hike with Rebecca. Then, due to so many of my English classes being either temporarily canceled, or canceled outright, I took a free Thursday exploring some of the more much more hair-raising "paths" by myself.

I'm not sure which cliff is the legendary Dívčí Skok, but my goal for the day was to climb to a peak I had made note of the last time, across from - and a little higher up - than the area we had reached. It's the chunk sticking up in the top left of the picture above. Yes, this bit. Looks easy from this angle, no? It appears to have plenty of hill leading up to it. Well, as I soon found out, this was not exactly the case.

I should mention that, from the point where the above picture was taken, Rebecca and I had reached a sort of plateau, a nice little clearing with a small rectangular bit of rock sunk into the center signifying You made it to the top of this hill! There were also paths leading up to it.. an easy meandering one that takes you the long way around, or, for the more adventurous, a steeper rockier way up the front (see the light areas in this picture). Not really true for where I was going on Thursday.. yes, there were paths, but they only went *so far* up the peak, and then veered off to circumnavigate the more difficult bits. Well, I am a certain sort of stupid when it comes to hiking and climbing things, so I wasn't planning to keep to the path. Plus, even as I approached it, it didn't seem *so* very daunting.. as I already mentioned, if you're far enough away it looks relatively easy to get to.

...


That is where I was headed. For reference, the scraggly-looking birch tree on the top is about as tall as I am. Hmm.. well, I couldn't *not* continue at this point, even with the residual childhood acrophobia kicking in at this point (I got rid of most of that by rock-climbing..). So, I trudged onward and upward. It was less inaccessible than I thought, I just had to spend some time looking around for the best angle of attack - the route with the least possibility of leaving me only as a red-stained rock if I happened to trip. And I was somewhat reassured by a tiny bit of grafitti.. meaning that someone else had been stupid enough to go there too. (On closer inspection it turned out to be a crude Death's-head in yellow paint. In retrospect, I'm not sure if that was some hooligan's tag, or a park ranger's warning.)

But, I made it. Here's my bookbag as proof. What do you do when you spend the morning climbing a cliff and reach the summit? Well, I took a short nap. Let me tell you, it's pretty eerie to lay on your back, and see only sky and the faintest hint of horizon in your periphery. I was also amused by the sporadic hail, which, at that altitude wasn't so much falling as dancing up and down on the wind.

After that, I took my time meandering back down, enjoying being "in the nature" as my students say in Czenglish. Here are some pictures I took of some gnarly tree branches and another tree with a corkscrew-like trunk: