Smrk, Mountain summit in northern Bohemia, Czech Republic
Smrk is the highest summit of the Czech Jizera Mountains, a broad forested ridge reaching 1,124 metres, with a lower Polish twin peak, Smrek, at 1,123 metres just across the border. The summit is built of gneiss, and a 20-metre steel observation tower stands beside it.
In 1628, under Albrecht von Wallenstein, a boundary dispute over two springs on Smrk led to boundary tablets marked A.D.F.S.S.R.I.P.; one was fixed to a giant spruce, the "Tafelfichte", uprooted in 1790. The first wooden lookout, built in seven weeks for 1,683 guilders, opened on 21 August 1892 and stood until the 1960s.
The mountain's name comes from the Czech word for spruce: a large spruce on the summit carried boundary tablets inscribed A.D.F.S.S.R.I.P., and after it fell in 1790 the name Tafelfichte passed to the whole mountain. A stone obelisk honours the poet Theodor Körner, who climbed here in 1809.
The summit is accessible via marked trails that climb from different sides of the mountain range. Sturdy footwear is advisable, and visitors should be prepared for rapid weather changes common to high mountain elevations.
The Polish summit of Smrek, one metre lower at 1,123 metres, has no summit marker, monument or survey point. It matters geographically because the watershed between the Baltic and North Seas runs across it, and dead trees killed by pollution block any view, unlike the Czech summit nearby.
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