Westweg-Etappe 03: Forbach - Unterstmatt

From the historic wooden bridge over the Murg, the Westweg leads straight through Forbach's old town centre. Passing the Maria Hilf Chapel, it climbs up through one of the romantic, quiet hayloft valleys. The first 450-metre ascent to Wegscheid really gets your legs going early in the morning. Your calves can relax again on the gentle descent down to the Schwarzenbach reservoir. The dam, the largest lake in the northern Black Forest, feeds the Forbach pumped storage power station, whose huge penstocks down into the Murg Valley are just a short detour away from the Westweg. A further 350 metres in altitude make the long ascent from the Murg Valley up to the first "thousand metre peaks" of the northern Black Forest perfect. The steep, rocky path up the Seekopf (1,001 m) leads past the tranquil Herrenwieser See, whose 170 metre high Karwand is considered the highest in the northern Black Forest. At the memorial stone for Philipp Bussemer, one of the two pioneers of the Black Forest Association who first marked out the Westweg, a quiet bench under the rhododendrons invites you to take a break. Just one metre higher is the Badener Höhe (1,002 m) with the Friedrichsturm tower visible from afar. At Kurhaus Sand, one of numerous once magnificent high-altitude hotels that are now slowly falling into disrepair, the Westweg meets the Black Forest High Road, which it follows all the way to Hundseck. A final ascent takes hikers up to the Hochkopf, the first Grinden summit on the Westweg. The trail leads through a rustic high moor and heathland landscape down to the Unterstmatt spa hotel.