When the Clouds Revealed the Whole Horizon for Ten Minutes

At the station in Ostravice, the windscreen was still covered with fine drops.

The forecast had said that the cloud base might rise around noon. It was one of those precise-looking promises that mountain weather has no obligation to keep. Above the village there was only a uniform grey ceiling, and Lysá hora was nowhere to be seen.

We set off anyway.

The first hour was not especially cinematic. Wet stones, dark spruce trunks and water dripping from every branch. Whenever the forest opened a little, we looked up and saw the same pale wall. A pair coming downhill told us it was windy on top and that the visibility was about twenty metres.

"So we know what to expect," one of us said.

We did not turn around. The walk itself was good, and we had dry clothes in our packs. Still, every few minutes somebody checked the brighter patch above the trees as if staring at it could move the cloud.

Near the summit, the wind began pushing mist across the path in visible waves. The 78-metre transmitter, normally the unmistakable landmark of Lysá hora, appeared only in pieces. First its base, then a dark section higher up, then nothing again.

We reached the top at 1,324 metres with wet sleeves and no panorama at all.

There were several other people sheltering by Bezručova chata. Some left almost immediately after taking a photograph beside the summit marker. We went inside for tea and put a damp glove on the radiator, then nearly forgot it there.

Through the window, the world remained white.

After half an hour we packed up. Outside, however, the fog was moving faster. For a second, a darker strip appeared below us and disappeared. Then it returned, wider than before.

Nobody announced anything. People simply began walking away from the walls of the hut.

The cloud tore open toward the southwest.

A forested ridge emerged first, close enough to show individual clearings. Behind it stood another, darker and higher. Within a minute the opening spread from one side of the summit to the other, and the flat white space became an entire landscape.

We opened Hill Explorer and pointed the phone toward the broad massif opposite us. Smrk appeared first. Farther along the horizon we found Kněhyně and Radhošť; when we turned the other way, Travný finally had a name too.

The view was changing too quickly for a careful survey. Clouds slid through the valleys, hiding one ridge while exposing another. The labels helped us keep our bearings while the landscape rearranged itself in front of us.

Someone nearby asked which peak was Smrk. We showed him the screen, then lowered the phone and traced the shape with a finger. A moment later three more people were comparing the real horizon with what they had on their phones.

To the north, sunlight reached the lowlands in isolated patches. Ostravice was hidden somewhere directly below us. The houses we had passed that morning were too small to pick out, but the valley suddenly made sense: where it bent, where the side ridges joined it and how far we had climbed.

For a few minutes, nobody complained about the wind.

Then the first cloud crossed Smrk. Radhošť faded next. Travný held on a little longer before its summit dissolved into grey.

We checked the photographs later. The first clear frame was taken at 12:17. In the picture from 12:27, the transmitter was already disappearing again.

Ten minutes.

By the time we started down, visibility had shrunk to the path, a few trees and the next trail marker. Hikers coming up asked whether there was anything to see at the summit.

We hesitated over the answer.

"Not right now," we said. "But wait a while."

The weather did not owe them the same opening, of course. That was the point. On Lysá hora, one of the coldest, wettest and windiest places in the country, a view is not part of the admission price.

Perhaps that is why those ten minutes stayed with us. We had not arrived for a guaranteed panorama and we did not conquer anything. We were simply there when the clouds moved aside.

For a short while, the blank horizon gained ridges, valleys and names. Then it closed again.