Hiking the Westweg – Germany’s Black Forest

We are well rested and fully resupplied after our fabulous visit to Stuttgart, now it’s time to get back on the trail. This time we plan to hike a section of the Westweg, Germany’s oldest and (perhaps) best known trail. We don’t expect this to be a high elevation, flashy hike like the TMB through the Alps, but we do expect beautiful hiking through the Black Forest. For those who don’t know, the Black Forest is The enchanted forest, best known for inspiring the Brothers Grimm to write stories like Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, on top of a whole host of other fairy tales and mysteries. At the end of this magical path lies the Swiss border city of Basel where yet more adventure awaits. So grab your bread crumbs and hold onto your butts, we got a train to catch.

The train to Hausach, of course! Well, 3 trains actually, and the first one was so delayed that we missed our connection and spent 2 hours sitting in the desolate little town of Herrenberg waiting. Then on the second train a very stoned Hungarian took my seat and tried to sell me some ecstasy, but since it wasn’t magic beans I declined. Eventually we ended up Hausach around noon and had lunch at a suspiciously large bar for a town of just a few thousand (how many slot machines could you need?). Perhaps that’s just the nature of rural Germany?

Anyway, we set out hiking south on the Westweg by early afternoon. Right above town sits the scenic ruin of Burg Husen, a reportedly giant 13th century castle of which only the restored tower remains, where we caught a nice view of Hausach nestled in the valley. From there the trail properly begins by steeply ascending 600m to gain the ridge line. Along the way lay huge expanses of quaint pastoral land, limitless rustic German farmhouses, and a whole bunch of towering windmills. We had never been so close to windmills before, so it was they that were the most interesting. We learned they are very tall, and those blades that seem to spin so serenely from far away speed alarmingly fast up close. They are also eerily quiet, and it’s surreal to watch things that are so huge move so quickly in near silence.

Also I’m discussing windmills so much because the hiking was undeniably a bit boring. There was just one view point worth mentioning at Huberfelsen, and the magical forest we expected was in short supply. The trail did go through forest, sure, but there were two problems. The first was the trail persistently stuck to logging roads and what the guidebook innocently called “forest tracks”, which were really just gravel roads complete with ditches on both sides. Aside from the initial climb, it would have been possible to literally drive the remainder of the day’s trail. The second problem was instead of deep, old growth forest, we were hiking through managed woodland full of homogenous trees, cleared underbrush, and carefully mowed lawns. Definitely not what we expected, but we just carried on and hoped things would improve.

The questionable hiking was improved somewhat by a stop at a little restaurant called Schöne Aussicht at the end of the day. Rick Steves would have absolutely loved the place, and this spawned one of our running jokes where we rated something by giving it “5 Steves!” in our best Rick Steves voice. Summed up another way, as sweaty backpackers we felt out of place on their finely decorated terrace, but the Black Forest cake was just like grandma used to make – with so much liquor that we were buzzed after a single slice. Drunk on cake, we walked only a little further before pitching our tent in an attractive little copse of Silver Firs. Inexplicably, somebody was running a chainsaw right down the valley until like 10pm but after that we had a good night.

Unfortunately, the second day’s hiking was similar first. The trail was again dominated by road walking through managed tree farms and pastures with few exceptions. Perhaps the best thing we saw all day were the atomic sized ant mounds scattered throughout the forest. The ants were about the size of the black ants we are familiar with, but the hills topped out at like 4 feet tall. We also stopped over at a small restaurant for an afternoon coffee in Martinskapelle, which would have been unremarkable except for right below the restaurant is the source of the River Breg, which forms a large part of the River Danube – meaning the water from Martinskapelle is among the most important in European history and eventually travels all the way to the Black Sea, almost 2000 miles away!

By the time we reached the little road crossing at Neueck in the late afternoon we had hiked about 16 miles. With enchanted forest still in short supply and only mediocre views to make up for it, we were feeling a bit tricked. How could this be such a well regarded and famous trail? Further, we knew from the guidebook that the upcoming trail section ran directly parallel to a major interstate, so we had no hope that anything was going to improve. Strangely enough, bitching about things for a while didn’t help, so we concocted an impromptu plan; we would take the bus/train from Neueck to nearby Freiburg im Brisgau, spend the night in Freiburg, and hook back up with the trail again further south the next morning. This way we would both skip the worst highway section and shorten the hike overall.

Not too long after, we were on the bus to Gutach im Breisgau. From there we took the train to Freiburg and finally wound up at Campground Hirzberg. Our city camping normally isn’t worth much discussion, but Campground Hirzberg was memorably bad. They had the sheer audacity to charge 35$ for a lumpy, sloped pitch in their jacked up yard about as far from the bathrooms as it was possible to be. Even then, it was late in the day and we had few options, so we grudgingly took it. Of course, we then suffered through a child screaming all night in a nearby tent. In short, it was the worst campsite we stayed in the whole trip, which is an honor since one of our sites in Norway ended up underwater with us floating in the fjord. The only consolation for the evening was that we remained in Germany, so the beer we picked up during our resupply was cheap, delicious, and in good supply.

The next morning were looking forward to leaving Freiburg behind, so we headed straight for the bus stop. We got there nice and early, then we stood there a while…just waiting for the bus. Then we stood there some more. Then we stood there so long we became concerned. Had we missed it somehow? Are we at the wrong stop? We stumbled around for a while with no idea what to do until a sweet German lady saw us in our pitiful state and let us in on the secret that “it’s Fridays for the Future today”. We quickly googled it and learned that one Friday a month the city participates in an international climate change protest. Turns out that bus drivers, and all other transportation employees, were protesting that day and our wayward bus was never going to arrive.

Firmly determined to not stay another night in Freiburg, we decided to just wait it out and go to the protest ourselves, which actually proved to be an interesting glimpse into European policy. For a monthly event it was pretty large, with a march through downtown, extensive road closures, and a rally in the main city square at the end. We didn’t understand the nuances of the situation since everything was in German, but it was obvious enough the crowd was really excited and the event was well organized – it certainly showed a level of interest in climate action that is totally unmatched in backwards old Atlanta, and probably unmatched in most of the US.

In the end, we were annoyed by the hours long delay, but it’s hard to be too upset about climate change action. Finally, in mid afternoon when it was over and the buses were running again, we caught a ride to the tiny road crossing outpost at Notschrei.  It’s worth noting that we skipped over Feldberg, the region’s tallest peak. We figured it was nice weather on a Friday afternoon and, since there’s a ski lift and a restaurant (and a cell tower) on top of Feldberg, it was going to be crowded.

Fortunately, Germany has long days in the summer and we were able to put up some fair mileage that afternoon despite the delay. Less fortunately, more boring road walking followed, including an extensive detour that found us walking with another American couple who were rushing to not be late for their couples massage – honestly, they were more typical of Westweg walkers than us. There was just one solid viewpoint along the way of Germany’s pretty pastoral land (on the detour of all places), before we found a place to camp for the evening. The site was a good one at least, and included a horde of giant black slugs crawling out of the bushes at dusk. I was dumb enough to leave my shoes out and uncovered overnight and still be surprised to find my shoe full of slugs when I went to stick my foot in the next morning.

The next day we powered out just under 20 miles of the remaining trail in our rush to get the Westweg over with. Even with the fast pace it turned out to be the best day of the hike on account of it included all the remaining high peaks of the Black Forest region beyond Feldberg. On the top of Belchen we had $5 coffees and watched in confused amusement as a group of grown-ass men lined up to ride childrens toy cars all the way down the 1000 meter slope of the mountain.

On Hochblauen, we could see all the way back down the ridgeline to Belchen and beyond, and we stopped for yet more Black Forest cake in their cafe. It wasn’t as good as the first, but it was still good after 18 miles of hiking. At length, we made camp in a nice pine clearing and slept all night sheltered within a cloud in staggering humidity.

On our final day we had only to hike the remaining 5 miles down to the little town of Kandern. The Westweg does continue on to Basel on foot, but we were not impressed enough by the trail to do it. The last trail highlight came at the ruin of Sausenburg castle where we got another good look back the way we had come and on down to Kandern. From Kandern, we unceremoniously took a train down to Basel and out of the Black Forest for good.

Well that’s it for the Westweg – not much of a hike, I know. We set out to walk perhaps 90 miles but in the end we did more like 65. It wasn’t our finest hike or our finest adventure, but don’t worry too much because Basel, Switzerland awaits, just across the border!

See you back in the land of Neutrality!