Říčej: a small summit puzzle above Chudenice
A 1.6 km forest out-and-back to Říčej, the fourth summit of an eight-peak day, where the mapped point and the likely natural high point appeared to be about 30 m apart.
The mapped summit was not quite where the ground said it should be. That small disagreement became the main point of Říčej, the fourth summit of my eight-peak day in the Plzeň Region. This was a compact outing — 1.6 km out and back, with 16 minutes up and 14 minutes down — but Říčej still qualified as a proper P100 objective, with 133 m of prominence and 2.86 km of isolation. The hill belongs to the Doubravský hřbet in the Korábská vrchovina, one of the forested ridges framing the Poleňka basin around Chudenice.
A high start on an old forest track
For this visit I could drive to a forest-road junction on the west-northwest side of the hill, at about 654 m. That reduced the ascent to a very short walk, although access this high may not always be possible. I started at about 15:19 and followed the same line shown on the map. What appeared there as a road was, on the ground, an old forest track narrowing to a path. It remained easy to follow through dry leaf litter and open beech woodland.
Higher on the ridge, the line became clearer and the lightly thinned woods admitted more March sunlight. The forest here forms part of the Švihovské hvozdy Natura 2000 site, protected for its extensive beech and oak woodland habitats. That context suited what I saw on the route: mature deciduous trees, an open forest floor and no attempt by the mountain to provide a conventional viewpoint.
Thirty metres beyond the pin
I reached the summit area at about 15:34. The point marked on my map seemed slightly lower than nearby ground, so I continued roughly 30 m along the broad top. There I found a small old survey remnant set into the ground and a red-and-white pipe leaning against a tree. The ground around them appeared marginally higher and felt like the more convincing natural summit.
My highest recorded GPS point was 694.7 m at 49.458901, 13.213208, close to this spot. I would not use one handheld reading to settle a subtle wooded summit, but it supported what I could see on the ground. The practical answer was simple: visit both the mapped point and the nearby survey remnant. On a broad forest top, that is more reliable than expecting a single dramatic apex.
There was no tower and no open panorama. Bare branches and thinning offered only filtered glimpses beyond the ridge, but the summit did not need more furniture or spectacle. Its interest came from the small exercise in identifying the top correctly.
Early spring on the return
Common hepatica (Hepatica nobilis) was flowering through the leaf litter beside the route. It is a widespread Czech woodland plant, most often associated with deciduous or mixed forest, and the blue-violet flowers were the clearest sign that winter was giving way.
I began descending at about 15:37 and followed exactly the same track back, reaching the car around 15:49. Říčej was neither long nor scenic, but it did exactly what I needed from the fourth stop of a busy day: a quick forest ascent, a repeatable route and just enough summit ambiguity to make those 30 minutes memorable.