Hiking the Black Forest

Hiking in the Schwarzwald of Southern Germany.

Trekking and day-hikes in the Schwarzwald of southwest Germany

The trail to the top of the Feldberg.

Germany's Black Forest contains a staggering 23,000km (14,000 miles) of hiking trails, so you'll never be at a loss for a place to go.

And, since it has been inhabited for a millennia, you're never far from a town or rail spur to get you to that trailhead.

The Black Forest is divided roughly into two regions.

The northern Black Forest

The northern half of the Black Forest contains most of the cities—the lively university city of Freiburg, the famed 19th century spa town of Baden-Baden, and genteel Karlsruhe with its sprawling baroque Schloss (palace) and fine art museum.

Not that there aren't also the woodlands the name "Black Forest" would suggest—in fact, part of this area was set aside in 2104 as Germany's newest National Park (Schwarzwald-nationalpark.de).

The southern Black Forest

A view over the Feldsee and Southern Black Forest.

I find it odd that the north that got national park designation since it's the southern half that is the true heartland of the Schwarzwald, a high massif where the mountains range from 3,000 to nearly 5,000 feet—a great short hike leads to the Black Forest's highest point, the Feldberg—and lakes dot the stream-fed valleys.

The core of this southern, High Black Forest is protected as the Naturpark Südschwarzwald (Hochschwarzwald.de), 22,000 hectares (85 square miles) tucked into Baden-Württemberg's southwestern corner—and, for my money, the best place to go for a hike.

The local tourism authorities have made hiking its 650 miles of trails dead simple.

At the park’s website, you can peruse and download detailed hiking trail maps, complete with elevation profiles and GPS waypoints, as well as download free hiking and informational apps.

Among the dozens of routes laid out, you can follow short loop trails of just a few miles, or tackle long-distance treks of 180km to 290km.

Hiking in Southern Germany.

Germans flock to the area for such multi-day hikes.

(As an interesting cultural aside, I’d like to point out that at least half the people I saw piling off the trains at the whistle-stops by trailheads—rucksacks on their backs and hiking poles in hands—were either right at or well into retirement age. Germans appeared baffled by the American ideal of spending one’s golden years sliding from retirement village to nursing home. Their goal is to stay fit enough so they can spend their pensions on week-long mountain treks and spa vacations. This is an admirable aspiration we would be wise to adopt.)

It’s easy to take such long-term hikes in Germany. Unlike the trackless wilderness of many U.S. parklands in the U.S.—especially those in the vast, sparsely populated West—most of the parks in anciently and densely populated Europe are laced by roads and railroad tracks and sprinkled with towns and mountain villages.

Even immersed in nature, you are rarely more than a few kilometers from civilization—or at least a mountain hostel or a simple hütte serving food and drink. 

What’s more, if you stay at any of the area’s 300+ partner lodgings—ranging from campgrounds to farmstays to spa hotels—you get a free card that grants you admission to the region’s attractions, zoos, and swimming pools, rides on scenic railways and lake boats, and waives the fees at golf courses and ski lifts.

(Fun fact, the world’s very first ski tow was installed in the Black Forest village of Schonach in 1908, invented by a local farmer fascinated by the odd contraptions he noticed some Norwegian guests using to slide through the snow).

Park rangers also offer free guided hikes on weekdays in summer on themes ranging from “monasteries and clock-making” to “scenic ravines and locally brewed beer.”

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