Smrk (Jizera Mountains)

Smrk is the highest mountain in the Czech part of the Jizera Mountains. Rising 1124m, it is sometimes known as "The King of the Jizera mountains"GeographyThe mountain lies south of Nové Město pod Smrkem in the Liberec Region of northern Bohemia. On the eastern rim of the plateau is the boundary with Poland; the Polish summit west of Świeradów-Zdrój reaches a height of 1123m.The summit offers a panoramic view to the prominent Sněžka peak of the Krkonoše range in the east, as well as to the Lusatian Highlands beyond the German border in the west up to the cooling towers of Boxberg Power Station.HistoryThe "Tabulový kámen" stone monument on the northern slope marks the site, which since the Middle Ages formed the historic tripoint between the Upper Lusatian lordship of Meffersdorf the Lower Silesian duchy of Jawor, where the lands around Szklarska Poręba were held by the House of Schaffgotsch, and the Bohemian territory around Frýdlant .The mountain got its name from a once mighty spruce tree near the border, where the Imperial generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein, after his elevation to a Duke of Friedland, nailed his coat of arms in 1628. The tree was uprooted, in 1790, by a storm.