DID KLÍNOVEC HAVE ITS OWN GLACIER?
A Landscape of Ice and Frost
When we stand today on the summit of Klínovec at an elevation of 1,244 metres above sea level, we see forests, meadows and surrounding settlements. Tens of thousands of years ago, however, this landscape looked completely different.
During the coldest phases of the Ice Ages, there was no continuous ice sheet here like those in Scandinavia or the Alps, but the Ore Mountains were exposed to an extremely cold climate.
The summit areas of Klínovec were probably a treeless tundra. Strong winds transported snow from the open mountain plateaus and deposited it in sheltered places. It was precisely in such locations that extensive snow accumulations could form and survive even during the short summers.
One of these places was the valley head in the source area of the Plavenský Stream, approximately two kilometres southeast of the summit of Klínovec.
The Mysterious Cirque Below Klínovec
Researchers had already drawn attention to the unusual shape of this place in the past. The greatest interest was attracted by the work of geographer Rudolf Lucerna, who in 1940 published a study with the telling title “Kar am Keilberg?” – “A Cirque on Klínovec?”
The question mark in the title itself was important. It was not a statement that Klínovec had its own glacier. It was a scientific question.
Lucerna described a striking amphitheatre-shaped depression resembling a glacial cirque. Its floor lies approximately 950 to 970 metres above sea level. Its shape indeed resembles places in other mountain ranges that were created by small mountain glaciers.
If a glacier existed here, it would not have been an Alpine-type glacier with a massive tongue extending far down into the valley. It would have been a small cirque glacier, limited to only a few hundred metres.
The Debate About the Klínovec Glacier
Later research was more cautious. Geomorphologist Václav Král pointed out a fundamental problem – no clear glacial deposits were found around the formation.
Most importantly, moraines are missing: ridges of rocky material that a moving glacier usually leaves behind.
For this reason, the opinion gradually prevailed that the formation could have originated in another way – through the long-term action of snow.
Such places are known as nivation depressions. For thousands of years, enormous masses of snow could have remained here. Meltwater penetrated cracks in the rocks, froze at night, expanded and slowly broke the stone apart.
Stone by stone, winter after winter, century after century.
The result could have been a shape very similar to a glacial cirque, even without the existence of an actual moving glacier.
A New View Thanks to Lasers
Modern technology brought a new chapter to the search. A digital terrain model created using laser scanning of the landscape made it possible to look beneath the forest cover and reveal the true shape of the Earth’s surface.
And this showed that the formation below Klínovec is much more pronounced than previously thought.
The horseshoe-shaped valley head has an edge approximately 650 metres long. Its wall reaches a height of around 70 metres, and below it lies a relatively flat floor at an elevation of about 940 metres above sea level.
Above this area are extensive mountain plateaus between Klínovec, Macecha and Černá skála. It was from these places that winds during the Ice Ages could have transported huge amounts of snow into the protected valley head.
A Glacier That Left No Traces?
The question of whether Klínovec really had its own glacier therefore remains open. Science faces a problem here that is not unusual even in other European mountain ranges.
Small mountain glaciers did not always leave traces as distinct as large Alpine glaciers. If they existed only for a short time, had a limited extent or consisted of so-called cold-based ice frozen to the ground, their ability to reshape the landscape was significantly weaker.
Such a glacier could almost disappear without leaving a trace.
On the other hand, it is possible that no real glacier ever formed on Klínovec. Perhaps only a large snowfield existed here for thousands of years – a perennial snow patch that, through its long-term action, was able to create a formation resembling a glacial cirque.
And this is precisely where the fascination of the Klínovec Cirque lies. It does not tell a story with a simple answer. Rather, it is a witness to a period when the highest mountain of the Ore Mountains stood at the very limit of possible mountain glaciation.
The Forgotten World Beneath Klínovec
Today it is difficult to imagine Klínovec without forests and green mountain meadows. During the Ice Age, however, a person standing here would have seen a completely different landscape.
Before them would have stretched an open, rocky tundra. Trees would have been almost absent. Icy winds would have swept across the summit plateaus, and snow would have covered the landscape for many months of the year.
Intense frost weathering affected the rocks. Water penetrated the smallest cracks, turned into ice and slowly broke apart even the strongest stone.
The results of this work of frost can still be seen around Jáchymov today – for example in the form of block fields and stone seas.
The same period that may have created the mysterious formation below Klínovec also gave rise to other natural monuments of the Ore Mountains.
A Hundred-Year-Old Question
Almost a century has passed since Rudolf Lucerna asked the question “Kar am Keilberg?” Yet this question has lost none of its fascination.
Modern technology has allowed us to see the landscape in a way that earlier researchers could not. Laser mapping revealed shapes hidden beneath the forest and confirmed that below Klínovec there truly exists an exceptionally interesting remnant of the cold periods of the Quaternary.
Whether it is the work of a small mountain glacier or the result of thousands of years of snow and frost activity remains the subject of scientific discussion.
One thing, however, is certain.
When we look today from Klínovec towards the deep valleys of the Ore Mountains, we see only the present form of the landscape.
But beneath our feet lies a much older story – the story of a time when above Jáchymov there were no mines and mining towns yet, but a land of snow, stone and ice.
And perhaps also the last forgotten glacier of the Ore Mountains.
