Góra Świętego Jerzego: The summit Peakbagger Calls Krzyżowa Góra

Jedlice had taken 26 minutes. After a short drive into Strzegom, I followed Peakbagger to the next target, a 354-metre western summit that would turn out to have the right coordinate and, probably, the wrong name.

Peakbagger's Polska P100 list calls it Krzyżowa Góra. Before I even reached it, Google Maps added its own contribution by sending me around to the south side of the hill, where the road ended at a very convincing, very well-barriered granite-quarry entrance. Thanks, Google.

The detour was at least thematically appropriate. Strzegom is one of Poland's principal granite-producing districts; the Polish Geological Institute describes the area as the capital of Polish granite. The characteristic local stone is commonly known as light-grey Strzegom granite, and active and former quarries are a conspicuous part of the surrounding landscape.

I drove back through town, took another paved road to the forest edge and parked beside several other cars. From there it was roughly half a kilometre to the top. Gentler paths curved around the final slope, but I took the direct line, which was steeper than necessary.

A small rocky outcrop sits very close to the summit, but it is not the high point itself.

The actual summit is nearby, mostly enclosed by trees, with one useful opening over the surrounding country.

The coordinate looks right; the name probably does not

The clearest way to separate the two neighbouring summits is:

• Peakbagger: places Krzyżowa Góra on the western point at about 50.97378° N, 16.33348° E, with an elevation of 354 m and about 112 m of prominence.
• Current Polish mapping: identifies that western 354 m summit as Góra Świętego Jerzego. This is the summit I came to climb and the higher of the paired tops.
• Eastern summit: the point with the granite stairs, iron cross and viewpoint is still commonly called Góra Krzyżowa locally, while the modern Polish state register uses Krzyżatka, at about 353 m.
• Range high point: the 2023 terrain-model review identifies Jedlice at 355 m as the highest summit of the Strzegom Hills. I had climbed it immediately beforehand.

So I would not move Peakbagger's point east. Its coordinate and elevation fit the western summit; the likely correction is the name, from Krzyżowa Góra to Góra Świętego Jerzego.

Older Polish topographic maps help explain the mismatch. On the sheets I checked, Krzyżowa Góra is printed broadly across the paired hill rather than cleanly attached to one bump. Peakbagger appears to have inherited the older hill name while placing its marker on the higher western summit.

That made the two short hikes fit together rather neatly. In less than an hour of walking I had visited the three points involved in the modern ranking and naming story: Jedlice 355 m, Góra Świętego Jerzego 354 m, and the eastern Góra Krzyżowa / Krzyżatka 353 m.

On the way down I took the gentler route I had ignored on the ascent. It passed a mushroom beside the path and one of the stone stations of the local Way of the Cross before reaching the saddle below the eastern summit.

The eastern Góra Krzyżowa

The second summit is much harder to confuse on the ground. Wide granite stairs climb through the trees to a large iron cross, a Polish flag and an open viewpoint directly above Strzegom.

The staircase has its own small historical puzzle. Strzegom's official history describes 100 granite steps associated with the 1840s cross project, while more detailed local research records a new flight of 102 granite steps built in 1875 and ceremonially dedicated on 5 July 1876. The two numbers appear to refer to different generations of the access rather than a counting problem.

The first iron cross was dedicated in 1845, destroyed later that year and replaced in 1850. From around it the forest finally opens into a broad view over Strzegom and the quarrying landscape that has shaped the town for generations.

Near the monument, a small wind-driven spinner was rotating noisily in the breeze. I still do not know exactly what it was. By then, an unidentified spinning object was the least confusing thing on the hill.

The whole GPX was only 1.3 kilometres and twenty minutes. The walking was over quickly; sorting out which summit name belonged where took considerably longer.