The snow melted into my boots, making me shiver. I was standing at a tram stop a few minutes away from one of the highest mountains in Czechia. I was here because I wanted to see the Ještěd tower.

This tower is a hyperboloid structure¹ built in the 60s as a hotel, restaurant and TV antenna. It blends in with the landscape, which is the point, and immediately makes you think of the sort of place a Bond villain would nestle in.

The tram took me to the terminus where I trudged through calf-deep snow to get to the cable car that would take me up the rest of the mountain. I mis-timed my arrival and ended up warming my trotters beside a log fire in a cabin behind the cable car station.

The cable car jolts its way up the mountain as you rise a kilometre above sea level in a few minutes. You see the ski slopes first, beginners turning into dots as your view becomes populated by the forest. There is a majestic magnificence about a monochrome forest that never fails to leave me speechless. The trees, boughs pregnant with last night’s snowfall, silently watch us as we climb and disappear into the clouds.

The carriage’s pendulous movement causes it to strike the side of the docking station. It sways into place buffeted by the strong winds. The conductor, with a sigh that belies the number of times he must have done this, flips the lock and opens the door to let us out.

The cold hits you as you exit the cable car in the same way that a headache just hits you. Someone had shovelled the snow aside. We still had to wade through ankle-deep snowflakes as we made our way up the last few metres to the Hotel Ještěd.

The waist-high barrier separates us from a grey, swirling oblivion. I wanted to stand there and savour the forces of nature. The cold wind convinced me otherwise soon enough. The building looms out of the clouds and the rock and is barely visible in these weather conditions. The main way to see it is to look for a building shaped mound of snow.

Inside, the circular building has a retro futuristic decor that makes for a perfect Bond villain lair . There is seating all around the structure with views – if visibility permitted a view that is. You can sit along the part which faces Poland, Germany or the rest of Czechia depending on your whim.

On this particular day, snow coated the windows preventing me from seeing no further than a couple of metres. As I sat to order a bite to eat, an almighty rumble echoed overhead as a snow drift dislodged itself and rolled down the hyperbolic roof.

It didn’t take long for the light to start dimming. Days aren’t long in winter in this part of the world. I didn’t fancy being stuck up a mountain in the dark, so I wrapped myself up tightly and headed out. The wind had picked up and was close to gale force now². It was a struggle to walk against the wind which hurled itself up along the small snow-covered road. It was doubly difficult to walk since I risked sliding along the ice. Not wanting to end up embedded in someone’s radiator grill, I gingerly treaded on fresh snow at the side of the road.

I made it to the funicular station in time for the next trip down. The cabin shivered itself through the clouds. Trees, skiers and the other signs I had left behind began to emerge from the ether again. I shlepped my way back down the rest of the hill but not before one last look back.

Ještěd, I will be back in summer. I want to see how you transform the landscape from one season to another, how the view on three countries opens up.

And I will make plans to come and spend a weekend here in the snow at the top of the mountain too.

Update

And here is what it looks like in summer:

Which is your favourite wind-swept snowy mountain peak?

1. Hotel Ještěd, The Hotel, 2017[↩]
2. The Beaufort Scale; Royal Meteorological Society; 2018-07-19[↩]