Travná hora (1,124 m a.s.l.) is a hidden gem on the Polish-Czech border in the Bialskie Mountains — an unmarked, wild summit that rewards adventurous hikers willing to leave the beaten path. It marks the highest point of the Polish side of the Bialskie Mountains, though the true summit lies just a few metres across the border on Czech territory.
The peak takes the form of a broad, gently flattened dome covered in mountain grasses, bilberry, cowberry and the remnants of a stunted spruce forest mixed with rowan trees. It offers no sweeping panoramas — the flat, lightly wooded top keeps views close — but it more than makes up for this with an atmosphere of genuine wilderness. A few small quartzite rock outcrops mark the highest point. The slopes are largely covered in natural montane forest, and the north-western flank falls within the protected Śnieżnik Landscape Park.
How to reach the summitLike much of the Sudetes, Travná hora was heavily affected by the environmental disaster that swept the mountains in the late 20th century — the stunted, sparse trees clinging to its summit are a quiet reminder of that past, and a testament to nature's slow but steady recovery.