Pūčkoriai Outcrop

The Pūčkoriai Outcrop is the most impressive and the highest outcrop in Lithuania. It is 65 metres high and 260 metres wide. This unique geological feature was declared a natural monument as far back as 1974. Today the outcrop is protected within Pavilniai Regional Park, in the Pūčkoriai Landscape Reserve. Pūčkoriai and its surroundings are the pride of Pavilniai Regional Park and its best-known and most visited site. The outcrop offers a wonderful panorama of the Vilnius area: you can see the bends of the Vilnia river, the hills and forests of Pavilniai Regional Park, Pūčkoriai Manor and the former cannon foundry. A little further on are the remains of the old Belmontas mill dam. Remains of interwar Polish army fortifications have survived near the Pūčkoriai Outcrop to this day: trenches, dugouts and a reinforced-concrete bunker. In 2013 the renovated Pūčkoriai Outcrop viewing trail was opened. Since then visitors have been greeted by wide stairs, wooden walkways, terraces, tables and gazebos. The trail is also adapted for people with disabilities. Following the scenic Pūčkoriai nature trail, you can see the outcrop both from above and from below. Thanks to its wonderful views, good facilities and easy access, the Pūčkoriai Outcrop attracts many visitors all year round. The Pūčkoriai Outcrop is on the eastern edge of Vilnius, in Naujoji Vilnia ward, on the right bank of the Vilnia, next to Stepono Batoro Street. It is worth noting that the Pūčkoriai Outcrop is changing. There is a constantly steep, cliff-like section on the right slope of the Vilnia valley. River erosion keeps it unstable. The outcrop exposes a thick layer of deposits from the older (Medininkai) glaciation, folded by the last (Nemunas) glacier. Clearly, as the glacier advanced it picked up the morainic and intermorainic rocks formed during the penultimate Ice Age (morainic loam with boulders, gravel, sand, silt, clay and others) and mixed them together.