Overview
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In my quest of collecting all portions of the Sudetes to have cycled them all, a low portion of the central range is still missing to me: the Góry Bardzkie ("Mountains of "Bardo", after the town, not Brigitte). These are small enough so I kept them for an end or a start of the season, just like Malinowa located just next. Wilcza Góra is the highest point of the north half of this area (the south will wait for next year, all couldn't be done the same day).
Since I bought my cycling boots covers, I decided it was worth extending as much as possible the cycling season, the occasion came with this fine Sunday morning. After a freezing start in the fog, the autumn colours were stunning in the sun ! Especially the larches.
Tomek, who came with me, is the author of the link I found by coincidence the day I wrote the Radunia trail, in who I found a fine cycling partner in the same city !
Trail description
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The best is to park at the car park of the hotel Złota Jabłoń in Opolnica, instead of the centre of Bardo (not the whealthiest area in the region...)
This place has the advantage to offers a safe and quiet car park, and to be at the start of an unmarked trail which avoids the only non-cycleable section of the blue trail from Bardo, the hill Młynarz.
It is up to you to decide in which direction is better to make this 8-shaped double-loop, but my feeling after it was that the first part (the big loop of the "8"), in the opposite sense than described, allows more climb on the flat road, and more descent in the wild.
We catch the blue trail few hundreds of meters ahead, and cycle few ponctual steep places to reach the tops of Suszy, Leszek, Klimek, Kukułka, Wielka Cisowa, Radosz. This is the most challenging part of the trail, with many surprising ups and down in the forest. Always watch out where the blue marks are going, because you may miss them at several points !
Then, at the pass Przełęcz Mikolajowska, instead of following the blue marks making a sharp turn left, we continue to the pass and catch the green and yellow marks. A descent starts but not for long, as we must make a sharp turn left. Keep the small gear ready to restart climbing just after the descent !
The yellow trail takes us to the road pass Przełęcz Wilcza. We continue while it takes us to a nice ridge for the rest of the ride over the hills, followed a long descent to the town Srebrna Góra, famous for the medieval castle, which is the south end of the Malinowa circuit I already described on MBPost.
We come back to the pass Przełęcz Wilcza by following the flat blue trail, which goes through the village Żdanów, and then back to the road which climbs smoothly to Przełęcz Wilcza, where we recognize the little wooden hut.
A long descent takes us to the eponym village Wilcza, in which we catch a secondary road forbidden to cars on the left, marked with green signs, and which turns into a forest track. Later, after crossing a nice valley, it joins back the Bardo road that follows for a while the beautiful shore of the river Nysa Kłodzka, till hotel Złota Jabłoń. (This last paragraph is the part which, in my opinion should be done in the opposite sense, then first as we leave the car).
 Wilcza Góra circuit |
Getting there
Bardo, the most obvious starting point, is very simple to reach both from Poland via Wroclaw, or possibly from Czech Republic via the Nachod border.
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When to cycle
As you can see, quite long during the year, as long as there is no snow !
