Mariina skála is a prominent rock outcrop, 428 metres above sea level, located north of the village of Jetrichovice, which is in turn, around 12km north of Stará Oleška, the village where I live. Perched on top of the rock is a gazebo forming a viewing platform, with spectacular views across the surrounding area.
Back in late March 2016, I did climb up to Mariina skála as I describe and illustrate in the latter part of this post. But more recently, I have wanted to return for two reasons. Firstly, the weather on that previous visit was somewhat misty, which restricted the views. Secondly, I had seen in local news reports, that a brand new gazebo had been erected earlier this year, replacing its predecessor which had become unsafe.
Therefore, when Monday 6th September dawned fine and sunny, I drove to Jetrichovice and then set out on the red waymarked route, to climb up to the top of Mariina skála. Jetrichovice is around 230 metres above sea level meaning a fairly steep climb of about 200 metres or 650 feet.
In many places, the route is a series of steps cut out of the surrounding sandstone rock as in the two photographs above.
Just occasionally, the path is a little less steep which allowed me to catch my breath 🙂
Here is the first view I got of the new gazebo….
…..just before the point where I needed to detour from the red waymarked route, in order to reach the summit.
This photograph, taken standing on the first section of the viewing platform, shows some of the steps I had to climb to get there. But the spectacular views made the effort in climbing more than worthwhile as I hope the following photographs illustrate.
