Westweg-Etappe 04: Unterstmatt - Alexanderschanze

Grinden is the name given to the bare, high moorland plateaus on the hilltops of the northern Black Forest. They were created in the Middle Ages through intensive grazing and overgrown with bristle grass, heather and mountain pines. Nowadays, the grasslands are being preserved through targeted clearing and a revitalisation of livestock farming.

From Unterstmatt, a narrow path winds its way to the Ochsenstall inn and then climbs up to the mighty television tower on the high plateau of the Hornisgrinde, the highest mountain in the northern Black Forest. The small Bismarck Tower stands at the highest point of the plateau. At the southern end of the moor, above Lake Mummelsee, the Black Forest Association erected the large Hornisgrinde Tower in 1910, which has been open to visitors again since 2005 following the withdrawal of the French military.

Behind the mystical Mummelsee, the Westweg crosses the slopes of the Altsteigerskopf, which were swept bare by storm Lothar. The cosy Darmstädter Hütte is a tempting place to stop for a bite to eat. Just under a kilometre further on, the dark Wildsee lake in The preserved forest shines like one of the eyes of the northern Black Forest. The nature centre at Ruhestein vividly explains the history of the Grinden landscape, which presents itself in a typical way on the flat Schliffkopf (1,055m). The unimaginable force with which storm Lothar must have swept across the Black Forest at Christmas 1999 can be marvelled at on the Lothar Trail. The small circular trail climbs over the snapped trees and crawls through the reappearing undergrowth. The Röschenschanze at the refuge and the Alexanderschanze from the 18th century bear witness to stormy times of a very different kind in the northern Black Forest.