The Kelchstein ("Chalice Rock") is a

mushroom rock A mushroom rock, also called rock pedestal, or a pedestal rock, is a naturally occurring rock whose shape, as its name implies, resembles a mushroom. The rocks are deformed in a number of different ways: by erosion and weathering, glacial action ...

in the

Zittau Mountains The Zittau Mountains (german: Zittauer Gebirge, cs, Žitavské hory), formerly also called the Lusatian Ridge (''Lausitzer Kamm''), refer to the German part of the Lusatian Mountains that straddle the Saxon-Bohemian border in the extreme sout ...

near

Oybin Oybin ( hsb, Ojbin) is a municipality in the Görlitz district, in Saxony, Germany, located very close to the border of the Czech Republic. Following the defeat of the Protestant armies by the Habsburgs in the Battle of the White Mountain in 162 ...

in the German state of

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

Geology

The Kelchstein consists of a

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

sandstone with very little cementing material. Its unusual mushroom shape has been caused by

wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...

and other erosive processes on sandstone strata of different hardness.

Climbing

The Kelchstein is one of the best known climbing rocks in the Zittau Mountains. It was first climbed before 1785, when woodcutters fixed a plaque to the summit; the plaque is no longer there. Its development for sports climbing started on 3 September 1911. Dresden climbers ascended the rocks with the aid of a tree at its northwestern corner. The first sports climb without any aids was up the present-day "Old Way" (''Alter Weg'') by Siegfried Schreiber on 26 June 1946. The ''Kelch'' is one of the most difficult summits to climb in the Zittau Mountains. Today there are only five routes, all at

climbing grade In rock climbing, mountaineering, and other climbing disciplines, climbers give a grade to a climbing route or boulder problem, intended to describe concisely the difficulty and danger of climbing it. Different types of climbing (such as spo ...

s of VIIc and VIIIc.

External links

''Biwak: Bergsport, Wandern, Abenteuer''
about climbers on the Kelchstein in the ''ARD Mediathek'' {{Coord, 50, 49, 59.2, N, 14, 44, 29.8, E, type:landmark_dim:25_region:DE-SN, display=title Climbing areas of Germany Rock formations of Saxony Natural monuments in Saxony Zittau Mountains Görlitz (district)