Stramchyně: the summit that gets a little higher every year
A short walk above Červené Poříčí to a 543 m summit where locals carry stones uphill, a painted penguin sits on the cairn and the mountain jokingly keeps growing.
Stramchyně has one of the more literal summit traditions I have come across: people carry stones uphill and joke that the mountain gets a little higher every year. That would already be enough personality for a 543 m wooded P100, but the summit also has painted stones, a penguin and a much older local story beneath the current cairn.
Driving farther in than planned
I had originally expected to leave the car by the main road and walk more of the approach. Instead I drove farther in than planned, first along a small track, then across a meadow and finally onto the forest road on the east side of the hill. In the dry conditions I probably could have pushed higher still, but stopping there already left a very short outing of about 1.4 km in total.
The opening section followed the forest road through quiet mixed woodland with old pines, some larch and leafless deciduous trees. Roe deer were moving through the forest, which helped the hill feel less like a checkbox and more like an actual place. The route itself remained easy: dry leaf litter, an obvious line and very little need for navigation.
The cairn that keeps growing
The forest road brought me high, then the summit broadened into the sort of wooded crest where it pays to look around rather than accept the first plausible bump. A little farther on I found the practical summit reference point: a built-up cairn beside a red-and-white surveying marker.
The cairn is more than a random pile of stones. Borovy has organised a traditional early-January community ascent to Stramchyně since 2007 together with the local volunteer fire brigade. One of the event’s running ideas is wonderfully literal: carry a stone uphill and help make the mountain higher. Over time ordinary rocks were joined by painted ones, and local reports describe decorated stones being carried up and, in some cases, later displayed back in the village. Some editions have attracted well over a hundred participants. A 543 m hill apparently needed a civic improvement programme; geology was moving too slowly.
The detail that tied all that together on my visit was a hand-painted penguin perched among the summit stones.
Nearby there was also a fire ring and ground torn up in places in what looked very much like boar rooting. The surrounding crest was broad enough that the exact natural apex did not matter much in practice; the cairn and marker are the point people recognise and the place that gives the summit its identity.
U Panáče and the older summit story
The modern stone-carrying tradition sits on top of an older layer of local history. A local account from nearby Vřeskovice records the summit under the traditional name U Panáče, after a statue said to have once stood on the top. A story grew up that weapons were hidden beneath it, serious enough for people to dig there in 1888; according to the account, they found nothing. The same source records a protected triangulation point on the summit and dates its pillar to 1938.
That older story makes the summit feel less accidental than it first appears. The penguin and painted stones are recent, but people had already been marking and returning to this broad wooded crest long before the current community ascent began.
I returned by the same route. I was back at the car just under 20 minutes after starting. For such a small amount of walking, Stramchyně gave me a disproportionate amount to remember. Its prominence makes it a genuine P100 objective, but that is not what stays with me. The growing cairn and one painted penguin do a much better job of that.