ski fence in the thuringian woods.
along the rennsteig, the thuringian forest's most famous hiking route, you'll find plenty more smaller paths and roads you can assemble for your very own hiking experience. if you don't like the rather overrun 'rennsteig', then i'd absolutely recommend to tread down less travelled lanes, they are much more quaint anyway and often lead you to cute little places that you wouldn't come upon when on the rennsteig. of course, to start out on this popular hiking route is always great for orientational purposes, but oftentimes we found the best places when we strayed off a little and detached from the rennsteig.
since my family is no stranger to the thuringian forest, we feel pretty comfortable checking out places there that not a lot of people have on their radar and only locals know about. such happened when we decided to stop at the forsthaus sattelbach, which is not even close to the rennsteig ( though close to the road L1129 - which is an important road from oberhof to the schmücke inn & vice versa ). there's a parking area there from which you can start hikes in the summer or cross-country skiing in the winter, and if your heart desires, you could even stop at the restaurant. i hear, that it's also a great place to check out the vista of the mountain peak of the 'schneekopf', but we weren't aware of that fact and instead only discovered later that the schneekopf is not too far away. it is the second highest mountain of the thuringian forest with about 978 meters elevation. i think in my last post i mentioned it briefly already, where we could see it from a big distance, but this time we got a lot closer, though our views were often obstructed by trees 😅
i quite adored these fences, suggesting the winter purposes of the paths around the forester's lodge.
cross-country ski sculpture!
the forsthaus sattelbach carries its name because of the nearby source of the little sattelbach creek, which we came upon a short time later. this little creek will later drain into the bigger creek of the 'wilde gera' ( which actually would have been something i'd be interested to see, as the wilde gera is a rather romantic little river in the thuringian forest ).
the road that lead from the forsthaus to the source.
swamp love 💚💛
further down the course of the sattelbach.
tiny waterfalls!
this memorial stone is a rather sad one, as it tells of the shooting of a lynx in 1780. lynxes already were pretty rare back in those days, as the population thought of them as predators that could endanger their livestock and their fur was also popular to sell. to the dude who shot the lynx it was probably quite a trophy shot, but to me now, centuries later, it just makes me sad that this guy helped wipe out the thuringian forest lynx population. thank goodness the state is trying to reinstate a new population these days, but of course that's only possible with migrating lynxes and breeding.
the stone was standing right next to our pathway, but i actually couldn't find proof on any memorial lists that it actually exists.
many of the hiking paths in the thuringian forest look like that, rarely do you find some smaller more winding ones. the thuringian forest after all, is a rather well-visited mountain range!
this mountain hut is called auerhahnhütte and serves as a meeting point to go on hikes and ski tours for members of the SG arnstadt - a sports club. apparently it has no running water or other amenities, but to me it surely looked like a perfect getaway place from where i stood! i didn't check it out much closer as i could hear people talking, probably having a break from their walking.
it was too cute, though! surely would love to spend a rather rustic night there 😄
i think we accidentally found the source of the 'wilde gera' ( it is my wild guess now, after looking at maps to find out what little rivulet i might have photographed here ). i don't think it was the sattelbach, as we passed that one quite a while ago and there was no other little creek nearby the auerhahnhütte that could've been it. a little further down, though, maps indicate the source of the wilde gera, so i am like 90 percent sure this body of water is the baby state of that exact river.
it sure started trickling along very shyly and hidden amongst long grasses.
i loved how the sunshine made the water sparkle and illuminate the plant growth.
finally, we realized that the schneekopf was not too far away, as i suddenly spotted the schneekopfturm. this is actually an observation tower that is also used as a climbing wall for climbers, so suffice it to say, that it's a rather popular space for tourists of all kinds. here's a curious detail about the tower: if you add the height of it to the elevation of the mountain you'll get 1004,15 meters above sea level, which therefore actually makes this tower the highest point of the thuringian forest!
next to the schneekopfturm there's a former telecommunication tower of the GDR, which connected the local party offices of the SED with each other. it was built in the late 1950ies.
found some frog spawn in a nearby pond!
so interesting that out of these little gooey bubbles will eventually emerge tiny little pollywogs, which further down their evolutionary road will also turn into froggies!
couldn't get enough of them 😂
old waterwork facilities from the 1920ies.
now THAT'S the paths my heart is beating for, these tiny well-worn, sometimes overgrown and enrooted trails! it led us to...
... this view eventually, that we got to experience from a vantage point called plänckner's aussicht onto suhl and the ringberg hotel. the ringberg hotel is a former VDGB ( peasant's mutual aid association ) vacation spot that was build in 1979 for people from rural places all over the GDR that wanted to have some vacations they could otherwise not afford. you had to apply for a spot at the association and would eventually get a voucher with which you could then travel to the place that you applied for and spend some well-deserved holidays. many of these vacation hotels were really popular and it was hard to get a voucher, so it surely often felt like a reward if you got a spot. i remember my parents applying for a spot at one of the best baltic sea hotels and they only got it because they said they wanted to get married there! so basically it was a wedding and honeymoon travel for them :D they returned to the baltic sea a lot after that, but i think they only booked privately somewhere or in smaller camp sites after that, which were easier to get a spot in.
sometimes i wish my camera would capture views like this more sharply and crisp, but then again, i kinda like the haziness 💜
with this view i can now move on to different pastures, namely returning to hessian grounds again for the next blog installment.
until then, stay curious!
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