okres Náchod

Both Rock Towns from Dolní Adršpach

Distance18.3 km

Elevation gain501 m

DifficultyModerate

Estimated time4 h 30 min

Overview

A full day between the two rock towns of the Adršpašsko-teplické skály reserve, walked as one 18.3 km loop from Dolní Adršpach. It goes through both rock cities, swings west through the forest that separates them, and comes back over the high ground north of the village, with 501 m of ascent. A fifth of the line carries no waymark at all.

Points of interest

Gotická branka — A gate-shaped opening in the sandstone at 1.3 km, the first named formation the walk reaches, on the charged Adršpach circuit. OSM records it as an attraction and nothing further.
Stříbrný pramen — A named spring 7 m off the line at 4.4 km, in the wooded ground between the two rock towns. It is mapped as a spring, not as a tested supply — treat it as scenery unless you carry a filter.
Hrad Střmen — The remains of a rock castle on the Teplice side at 5.5 km, 52 m off the path: the sandstone crag it was built into stands at 630 m and is mapped as a viewpoint.
Volská studánka — A second named spring, at 7.3 km and 8 m off the line, on the southern leg where the route has left both rock towns behind. Mapped as a spring; the same caution applies.
Starosta a Starostová — The Mayor and the Mayoress: a pair of sandstone towers standing side by side at 14.3 km, two metres off the path and the most photographed formation in the Adršpach rock town.
Zámek Adršpach — A chateau at the edge of the village, 16.9 km in and 25 m off the line near the end of the loop. Not the rock castle of the same name — that one is a ruin out in the rocks.

Trail alerts

Just under a quarter of the walk — 4211 m of it — runs on paths and forest tracks that carry no hiking blaze. The ground is unmarked rather than untracked: these are made paths and made tracks, but between the two rock towns there are long stretches with nothing signposted to follow, and the recorded line is what you navigate by.
2842 m of the day is on road of one kind or another, 16% of it, and a further 1203 m runs within 25 m of one — mostly unnamed village road, with traffic to expect on those stretches. None of it is road lacking a pavement of its own.
No closure dataset for this district is in our source registry, so nothing on this page has been checked against one. The reserve is a national nature reserve and its managers can shut sections of it, so ask locally before setting out.
Nobody has walked this exact line. It was composed in our own app from earlier walks by colleagues; no publisher has issued it and no end-to-end recording of it exists, so nothing has checked it on the ground. Treat it as a planned line rather than a tested one.

Trail character

Underfoot it is mostly path: 7386 m is mapped only as a path by its way type and another 1627 m carries a path surface tag. 4666 m is hard-surfaced, 1979 m compacted earth, 909 m sand and 896 m boardwalk through the rock passages. 709 m — 4% — OSM does not tag at all.
The line runs between 507 m and 718 m, and the 501 m of climbing arrives in several separate pulls rather than one long ascent.
Nad srázem, at 746 m the highest named ground anywhere near the walk, stands 64 m off the line with no walkable way to it. The route passes under it and does not go up.
The sandstone here reaches 90 m in places, the Teplice side alone has about seventy named formations, and the whole area has been a protected reserve since 1933.

Access & rules

The loop is re-cut to begin at an unnamed car park at Dolní Adršpach, 227 m off the line. Its capacity is recorded nowhere we can read, so how many cars it holds is unknown.
Admission is charged twice over. The operator's terms state that entry to the tour circuit and driving into the car park are each paid (Obchodní podmínky §1.9). In the Teplice rock town the circuit along the Skalní potok is charged, while the Supí skály and the Čáp summit are not.
The car park is open around the clock, but an online parking permit is valid for at most fourteen hours, and a vehicle that has left may not come back on the same permit.
Ways carrying an access condition make up 6199 m of this route, tagged access=customers, with 305 m more tagged access=destination. OSM records them as open on a condition rather than open to all.
The walk starts and finishes in Adršpach, okres Náchod, Královéhradecký kraj. It crosses a district boundary into SO ORP Trutnov and municipal boundaries into Jívka and Teplice nad Metují, so local signage and rules can change part-way round.

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