Schluchtensteig

The adventure starts quietly: along the rails of the Sauschwänzlebahn museum railway, as if the train itself is showing you the way. Then the valley narrows and the Wutachflühen begin, limestone walls rising 85 metres above the trail, dripping ferns and a light that barely reaches the bottom. Past a tuff cave, the ruins of Blumegg and an old water mill you climb out of the gorge, and the Buchberg rewards you with a first wide look back at the country you just walked through.

The gorge day, and the one people remember. Down through the Schleifenbach ravine, then into the Wutach itself: paths pinned against the rock with ropes, the Tannegger waterfall thundering into the valley, and the strange moment when the young river simply seeps into its own gravel bed and walks on without water. The ruins of Neu-Tannegg guard the confluence; a short detour into the wild Lotenbach gorge is worth every step. The day ends deep in the forest at the Schattenmühle, where the inn has been feeding gorge-wanderers for generations.

Out of the gorge and onto the high forest, but not out of drama: the trail passes the legendary Räuberschlössle and the old power station at Stallegg before the rock towers of Rechenfelsen and Höllochfelsen frame the Haslach ravine, one of the quietest corners of the whole trail. Through Lenzkirch and the peat-bog landscape of the Schwendital you reach the broad open water of the Schluchsee, where the first lake-view terraces appear through the trees.

A day of big vistas after the tight gorges. Above the largest lake in the Black Forest the trail climbs to the Bildstein, where the whole Schluchsee lies at your feet, and on over the open heights of the Krummenkreuz. Then the forest closes in again and the trail drops into the dark Windberg gorge, cool and mossy even in summer. At the bottom, the day ends with a view few stage finishes can match: the enormous neoclassical dome of St. Blasien abbey towering over the square.

The Hotzenwald day: high, open and surprisingly gentle. The trail crosses moorland and high meadows where, on a clear day, the entire snow line of the Alps lines the horizon, a view nobody associates with the Black Forest until they see it. At the old fluorspar mine of Gottesehre you can duck into a visitor adit and learn why this quiet plateau was once dug up for its minerals. The Lehenkopf tower gives the panorama one last turn before the long, easy descent into Todtmoos.

The longest day, and the wildest finale. The Wehra has cut its own quiet gorge below Todtmoos, mossy, shady and all yours, before the trail crosses the Bötzberg and drops into the final act: the Wehraschlucht, where the river falls over rocky steps and rapids towards the Rhine plain. One last viewpoint at the Bärenfels, then the valley opens and the walk ends in Wehr, in the shadow of the old monastery walls. Six days of gorges, and then you are in Wehr.