Czantoria Wielka (995 m a.s.l.) is one of the most visited peaks in the Polish Beskids — a border summit straddling Poland and the Czech Republic, rewarding every visitor with sweeping panoramas and a wonderfully lively atmosphere. It is the highest point of the Stożek and Czantoria Range in the Silesian Beskids, and simultaneously the highest peak on the Czech side of the range.
The mountain is draped in dense beech and spruce-fir forests, broken up by open grassy clearings where you can sit back and take in the view. The eastern and western flanks are impressively steep — the elevation difference between the town of Ustroń and the summit is a full 630 metres. On a clear day the panorama stretches across the Silesian and Moravian-Silesian Beskids, the Vistula river, and the industrial skyline of Upper Silesia all the way to Ostrava. Winter brings a ski run on the slope, turning the summit into a buzzing mountain hub.
How to reach the summitLegend has it that a sleeping army of knights with three hundred horses rests inside the mountain, ready to rise and defend Silesia in its darkest hour — a tale celebrated by the 20-kilometre 'Knights' Trail' that winds across Czantoria's slopes.