Thursday 12th September 2024

We’d kept a close eye on the forecast since arriving in Germany and today looked to be the first (and perhaps only) sunny day. Consequently we had reserved it for the main thing on our holiday to do list – a hike up Feldberg, the Black Forest’s highest mountain. We left the apartment at 8:30am and set off south in our little hire car, itching to explore the hills. Bright morning sunshine saturated the green fields that filled the valleys as we snaked through the vast landscape, lifting mist from dark, thickly forested hillsides in atmospheric veils. We navigated an unexpected road closure, passed high above the glassy surface of Lake Titisee and arrived in a small roadside car park at 10am.

The Feldbergsteig trail

We set off uphill past a modern, sharp-angled church and found ourselves in an outdoorsey resort containing a large hotel, ski centre and cable car base. Eager to escape the tourist trap, we found an information board showing our intended route, the Feldbergsteig. We hadn’t appreciated that the trail starts at an elevation of 1,287m so it felt like cheating to say we were climbing a 1,493m peak, but nevertheless we were excited for a varied, circular hike in a new mountain range.

To the Bismarck memorial

We headed northwest up a wide, gently inclining track that ran roughly parallel to the cable car line, passing several small groups who greeted us with a friendly “hallo”, and soon began soaking in the view. The surrounding yellow-green meadows melted into dark treelines formed by tall, deep green spruces, beyond which stretched endless forest spread thickly over distant, hazy blue ridges arranged in undulating layers. It was sunny, still and resoundingly quiet.

The track narrowed and took us into a verdant coppice, then continued through rugged meadows past a severe-looking concrete tower laden with satellite dishes. The first landmark we arrived at was the Bismarck memorial, a great stone pillar dedicated to the first Chancellor of the German empire. It was a wonderful viewpoint; a continuous swathe of forest covered the surrounding  hills and valleys like a dark green blanket stretching all the way to the distant horizon, broken only by occasional ragged-edged, grassy clearings.

Up Feldberg

We left the memorial and headed down the side of the hill across open meadow. We went through a gate and followed a wide gravel path along the side of a ridge, which was covered in rough, yellowish grass and sloped gently downhill towards the endless forest. A strange, tinny sound tinkled across the valley and a thin curtain of fluffy cloud – which had drifted down the ridge and obscured the path ahead – cleared to reveal a small herd of Fresian cattle blocking the path. I’ve been averse to cows since getting charged by a bull a few years ago, so I gave them a wide berth and reached a gate with some relief.

We gained the summit of Feldberg via a straight path up a gentle incline, the only drama being the loud and alarming receipt (on our phones) of Germany’s annual nationwide emergency alert test at 11am. It was a grassy and oddly subtle, unremarkable peak marked by a low, flattened mound topped with a trig point and a circle of benches, marred slightly by a tall communications tower and grim looking building a short distance away. We munched a sandwich with our backs to the tower and gazed across gently rolling, forest-carpeted hills, pondering on the ethics of saying we’d climbed a mountain.

Through field and forest

My doubts about the mountainous nature of the area were allayed once we left the summit and headed down a track that passed the ugly tower. The peaks ahead of us to the west were steeper, more undulating and completely forested compared to the gentler, grassier slopes to the east, and the horizon was formed by wide, hazy triangles of more mountain-shaped mountains. We headed downhill past a lush, green meadow dotted with fir trees and cattle, their cowbells tinkling whimsically in the breeze, and reached the first alpine hut along the route – a large, tiled, welcoming-looking building. Resisting the temptation to stop and grab a drink, we continued on the path, which flattened out and arced around Feldberg’s lower reaches in a smooth curve.

We tramped across charming, rugged meadows, then entered the thickly forested hillside to the north of Feldberg. A thousand shades of green emanated from ferns, shrubs, trees, grasses, mosses and lichens, which grew in Jurassic Park-like abundance on the steep slope. Shrubby clearings allowed us to gaze across a deep valley to opposite, equally living slopes, which were drenched in warm sunlight that slipped beneath thin clouds that drifted lackadaisically over the valley tops. It was incredibly tranquil, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

Past river and lake

We followed the path diagonally down the hillside, crossed a marshy section via a boardwalk and found ourselves at another alpine hut. A steep climb through the forest took us up to another swathe of meadow on the east side of Feldberg’s neighbouring hill, which dropped gently down into more verdant forest. We crossed the narrow, crystal clear Sagenbach river and followed its wonderfully overgrown, mossy banks downstream, marvelling at several rocky waterfalls and – on seeing the many bridges made by fallen trunks – wondered what storm could possibly have touched this serene place.

After winding down the river via bridges, steps and rocks, the route bore us east along a straight, flat track along the side of a hill between legions of tall pines. We stopped for another sandwich at a picnic table, then followed the arc of a spur to the edge of a valley clearing, where another large hut sat below us among cattle fields and meandering tributaries. We followed the treeline down into a peaceful wood, then came to the shores of the perfectly round, cwm-like Feldsee Lake. The clear, gently rippling water was surrounded on three sides by towering, green walls that looked too steep to accommodate the dense mass of huge trees that had somehow taken root. We stood on the “beach” for a moment, watching the ducks and listening to the silence, then set off on the final section of the route.

Last leg

The path followed the east bank of the lake, then climbed steeply into the thicket of beech, sycamore, pine and spruce. We zigzagged up rocky sections until the ground levelled and we emerged from the trees quite suddenly at the cable car base. It felt slightly surreal to be back in the busy resort after the serenity of the hike, which had felt quite wild despite the clear, well-signposted trail. We headed straight back to the car and, after debating whether a trip to the city of Freiburg would be worth it at rush hour, left for home (via Lidl, of course).

To summarise, it had been a lovely, varied hike with beautiful scenery that made us feel truly immersed in the Black Forest. The trail was very easy to follow (we barely used my guidebook map) and I just wish it had been longer than 8.5 miles. We came away feeling very refreshed, happy with a good day exploring a new mountain range.

Evening

We got back at 4:30pm and spent the evening relaxing on the balcony, drinking wine/beer, watching Rings of Power on Netflix and playing with Kraut the cat. Ryan cooked a lovely dinner of homemade schnitzel with steak, salad and potatoes and I came up with a rough plan for another hike the next day, this time starting from our apartment. Three days in and we felt very at home in the Black Forest.