Velký Bítov: a Czech P100 beyond the cross
A short 3.6 km Czech P100 loop from Struhadlo, where a cross and antenna mark the wrong bump and the true 713 m summit hides farther north beside old triangulation remains.
Velký Bítov was the second summit in my eight-peak day, and its best feature was not the height or the view but a small summit-identification trap. The hill reaches about 713 m in the Švihov Highlands, has 117 m of prominence, and is the highest point of Poleň municipality. On the ground, however, the place that looks most like a finished summit is not the true high point. A cross, antenna and picnic table sit on a lower southern bump; the real top is farther north in the woods.
I parked in the centre of Struhadlo at roughly 49.389889, 13.178863, beside the village monument and bins. The first few minutes were pure village walking: dogs behind fences, houses close to the lane, and one fence decorated with a surprisingly large collection of old mugs. It was a minor detail, but exactly the sort of thing that makes one short approach distinguishable from another after a day of collecting peaks.
Beyond the last houses, the route climbed steadily on forest roads. Logging, fenced regrowth and open patches broke up the woodland, so this never felt like an untouched forest walk, but it was easy terrain and well suited to a quick loop. About fifteen minutes after leaving the car I reached the lower south point, around 693 m.
This is the convincing false summit. The tall cross, antenna and picnic table give the place far more ceremony than the actual top. It would be an entirely reasonable destination for a casual local walk, but for a prominence-list summit it is still the wrong bump. The useful rule on Velký Bítov is simple: do not turn around at the cross.
From there I continued north through the trees towards the mapped high point near 49.399784, 13.178474. The upper crest is broad rather than pointed, with leaf litter, woodland and areas affected by cutting and regrowth. There is no single dramatic moment when the terrain announces that you have arrived. The summit becomes convincing through position, the shape of the crest and the surviving survey remains rather than through any grand natural feature.
At the true high point, an old rusty triangulation post rises from a collapsed stone pile. It is a much quieter marker than the cross below, which somehow makes it more appropriate for this hill. A summit register box was attached to a nearby tree, although I passed it without signing. My GPX recorded its highest point, 715.7 m, only a few metres away at 49.399787, 13.178527; the mapped summit elevation is lower, so the track maximum should not be mistaken for a different higher summit.
The summit itself is wooded, and the better views came from openings along the route. Cut areas revealed the agricultural landscape around the ridge: fields, scattered villages and low wooded hills rather than anything remotely alpine. Velký Bítov is a small objective, but those openings gave the walk enough geographical context to keep it from becoming just another anonymous forest summit.
I completed the loop on broader forest and logging roads east of the summit ridge. They were quicker underfoot than the upper crest and made the return feel more purposeful than simply retracing the ascent. The full circuit was about 3.6 km with 135 m of recorded ascent and took 47 minutes car to car.
As peak 2 of 8, Velký Bítov did exactly what I wanted from it: short logistics, an easy ascent, a proper P100 summit, and one small puzzle that rewarded checking the map instead of trusting the most obvious landmark. The cross is memorable, but the old triangulation remains farther north are the reason the ascent was complete.