Jon Searles' photos

This is virtually the same scene as Picture 4, but in landscape orientation.

Again, I simply took this photo simply because I liked how this scene looked, with the sunlight coming through the trees.

This was the menu sign at Horska Bouda Ruzohorky.

This restaurant is also called the "Mountain Shed Ruzohorky" in English. It is a restaurant, though, and so we stopped here on our way down Snezka.

"Horska Farma" means "Mountain Farm," although we didn't visit it properly. I took a photo of this sign because it looked like it was put up during Austrian rule pre-1918, when most signage was in German. This sign is almost certainly a replica, though, both because unpainted wood usually doesn't last that long, and because this sign is largely in Czech. "Horska Farma" is Czech.

I took this photo simply because I liked how this scene looked. A lot of Czech forests look like this, and they remind me a lot of northern New York, actually.

This was the second photo I took of the trail down Snezka, which makes the path look more level than it really is. This section reminded me of Milichovsky les in Prague, hardly a rural area in reality.

This was a view of the west side of the Ruzova hora cable car station, taken as we were hiking down Snezka.

This was the first photo I took of the trail down Snezka, which was actually pretty far down the mountain. This is just above the Ruzova hora cable car station.

This "trash cemetery" attempts to explain the harm done by litter, and by solid waste in general, due to slow decomposition rates, showing in this case the decomposition rates of radioactive waste (probably they mean depleted uranium), glass, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, plastic bags, and milk cartons. Again, I'm skeptical of how realistic this is, especially with respect to aluminum cans and plastics. It is striking, however, how radioactive waste is thought to last longer than any of the other forms of waste, although it represents a tiny fraction of solid waste in the world.

This "trash cemetery" attempts to explain the harm done by litter, and by solid waste in general, due to slow decomposition rates, showing in this case the decomposition rates of plastic bags, milk cartons, and tin cans. Again, I'm skeptical of how realistic this is, as it's routine for archeologists to find all of these things well over 100 years after they're discarded (although maybe not so often in the case of anything plastic just yet). "Hrbitov Odpadku" means "trash cemetery" or "garbage cemetery."

This "trash cemetery" attempts to explain the harm done by litter, and by solid waste in general, due to slow decomposition rates, showing in this case the decomposition rates of cigarette filters, gum, orange peels, paper, and apple cores. I'm actually skeptical that a cigarette would degrade in only 10 years, but it's possible, as I'm not an environmental scientist. Gum can vary, too, of course, as I've found gum that was clearly decades old (by circumstantial evidence).

This shot gives a clearer view of the resorts at the foot of the Polish side of Sniezka.

This shot gives a clearer view of a trail up Sniezka which was out of view to the left in the previous shot. This wasn't the route we took up the mountain, though, as we came via the cable car. This also wasn't the route we descended by, as we hiked down the Czech side, via Bouda Ruzohorky.

This shot shows some of the picnic tables for the Sniezka Restauracja-Kawiarnia, as well some of the resorts at the foot of Sniezka. This appears to be a popular tourist area generally.

This is what appeared to be the modern, automated weather station slated to replace the old one with the observation deck and the restaurant. Again, reports of the old station being shut down were disputed as of 2015, so some follow up would be necessary to get a clear answer.

This was the sign for the restaurant, next to the entrance.

This old weather station, built in 1974, hasn't fully functioned as such since 2009, when there was a partial structural collapse due to snow (since repaired), and when I visited in 2015 there was already talk of selling it off or repurposing it. There was also an automated weather station nearby, which will likely replace it when and if it's fully retired. There was already a (by appearances) popular restaurant in the weather station when I was there, called Sniezka Restauracja-Kawiarnia. Allegedly, this restaurant closed in November 2015, soon after I was there, but the Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management contradicted this report. Getting current information online (at least on the restaurant) is surprisingly difficult, as a number of Polish restaurants, sweet shops, and cafes also use the Sniezka name.