Feeling fortunate for the extended summer weather into September we made another trip back to Šumava National Park. Although its only a 2 ½ hour drive from Prague it seems more efficient to spend the night there to make the most of the warm days. This time we stayed at the northern end of the park in the town of Železná Ruda (means iron ore). We decided to stay in a hotel located on the southern slope of Pancíř Hill rather than in the village. We can recommend the hotel Orea Resort as a great location https://www.resorthorizont.cz/hotel/. They were extremely conscious about the safety of their guests and disinfectant was everywhere. The food was decent and the guests all wore masks. We strongly suggest you make the hike up the hill (or use chairlift if its running) to take in the sunset on Pancíř about a 20 minute walk.
We started this ride from the hotel and knew that we would have to be conservative with our batteries as it was mostly downhill in the beginning. The thought is always in our heads that what goes down must come up and with these heavy bikes we don’t want to ride on 0% battery!
The forests of Šumava are much like all the Czech forests and its easy to get mesmerized by the different trees and how the light reaches the forest floors. I especially love the forests that aren’t so logged and planned with a variety of trees (oak, fir, beech, spruce) But one of the problems Šumava has had to deal with is connected with bark beetles, and there is heated debate about how to treat them.
The ride is planned from the parking lot at Špičácké sedlo, which is a paid parking lot. After reaching point 2, you will have a long ride down to Zelená Lhota, which is the only place to get any refreshment on this trip.
An important attraction on this trip is “Černé jezero” (Black lake) with its natural beauty, nature specialty, and dark history. It is the only lake in which a relict from the ice age, the critically endangered Šídlatka jezerní (Isoetes lacustris) is still surviving. As for the dark history, in the year 1964 the communist secret police pretended that it recovered secret documents from the times of Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Some political figures in Germany resigned or even committed suicide as they were afraid of the secrets from the war times would come to light.
The ride can be accomplished on any type of bike as the road was not really challenging, with the exception of a battery usage.
https://mapy.cz/s/mujoluvujo 43 km with almost a 1 km elevation gain
Once you visited Černé jezero, you might be interested in Čertovo jezero (Devil’s lake) which is a little more than one km away. Interesting fact about these two lakes is that the streams flowing from these two lakes end up in different oceans due to the continental divide located just between them. If you have enough battery, you can do this trip the same day, or you can use the map given lower for a short trip (8 km) swinging by the beaver dams (point 3) in Železná Ruda. Riding on the yellow tourist mark from point 3 to 6 may require carrying the bike for a short stretches. For this trip you can use the large parking lot on the side of the road down from Špičácké sedlo.
https://en.mapy.cz/s/petepasovo 8.6 km with 268 m elevation gain
