Westweg Hochschwarzwald

Westweg Hochschwarzwald is the highest part of the Westweg, the 285-kilometre high route from Pforzheim to Basel. The Schwarzwaldverein laid it out in 1900 and marked it with the lying red diamond; this trip follows the southern section on the western variant, from Hinterzarten over the Feldberg, the Belchen and the Hochblauen to Kandern, 59.5 kilometres in four stages.

The first day climbs from Hinterzarten station through the woods to the Rinken and past the Feldsee, the dark cirque lake below the summit, to the Feldberg at 1,493 metres: the highest point of any German Mittelgebirge. The second is a ridge day: over the open crest of the Stübenwasen, with the Feldsee far below on your left, to the Wiedener Eck at 1,035 metres, where the hotel stands right on the pass.

The third day is the finest. Over the Belchen at 1,414 metres, with the Alps, the Vosges and Mont Blanc in one view on a clear day, then through woods and meadows to the Haldenhof, where the stage ends; the beds are a kilometre and a half lower in Neuenweg. The fourth day climbs back to the crest, over the Hochblauen at 1,165 metres with its iron lookout tower, past the ruin of the Sausenburg and through the vineyards of the Markgräflerland to Kandern.

The landscape is high: spruce forest, open mountain meadows with gentian, granite and boulder fields, and in the south the chain of the Alps on the horizon. Above 1,200 metres there is almost always wind, and in June snow can still lie in the north-facing hollows.

Practical. The route is waymarked with the red diamond. Hinterzarten has a station on the Höllentalbahn between Freiburg and Donaueschingen; Kandern has no station, but buses run to Lörrach and Basel. The stages end on the Feldberg, at the Wiedener Eck, at the Haldenhof and in Kandern; you sleep on the pass on the Feldberg and at the Wiedener Eck, and below the Haldenhof in Neuenweg. From June to October the paths are free of snow; the Feldberg can stay white into May.