The Himmeldunkberg or Himmeldunk is an extinct

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

, m high, in the High Rhön (''Hohe Rhön'') in Germany. It straddles the Bavarian-Hessian state border.

Location and surrounding area

The Himmeldunkberg lies in the southwestern part of the ''Langen Rhön'' ("Long Rhön") which is in turn part of the High Rhön. 2 km south is the village of Oberweißenbrunn, 4 km to the southeast is the town of

Bischofsheim an der Rhön Bischofsheim may refer to the following towns: * Bischofsheim, Hesse, in Hesse, Germany * Maintal-Bischofsheim, a district of the city of Maintal in Hesse, Germany * Bischofsheim in der Rhön, in Bavaria, Germany * Bischoffsheim, in Bas-Rhin, Franc ...

and 3 km northwest is

Gersfeld Gersfeld () is a town in the Fulda district of Hesse, Germany, on the Fulda River in the Rhön Mountains, southeast of Fulda. It belonged to the abbey-principality of Fulda before secularisation in 1803. It then belonged to the Principality of ...

. The Rhine-Weser watershed runs over the summit of the Himmeldunkberg and neighbouring hill of

Hohe Hölle Hohe Hölle is a 893.8 m (2,932 ft) mountain of Bavaria, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. ...

and forms the boundary between

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

and

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

as well as the long-distance trail, the Rhön-Höhen-Weg (RHW). Border stones erected in 1872 show where the old border between the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

and the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

ran.

Geology

The Himmeldunkberg consists mainly of the

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

rocks

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

and

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock co ...

Description

The northern slope falls steeply away and is covered with mixed, deciduous forest. The arc from southwest to east is open; mainly covered by grasses,

blackthorn ''Prunus spinosa'', called blackthorn or sloe, is an Old World species of flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is locally naturalized in parts of the New World. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Basq ...

rose hip The rose hip or rosehip, also called rose haw and rose hep, is the accessory fruit of the various species of rose plant. It is typically red to orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form after pollina ...

s, silver thistles and bellflowers. The Himmeldunkberg lies in a nature reserve of the same name; for that reason mountain bikes may only be used on tracks with mountain bike signs. The mountain is however a very important site for unpowered aerial sports because it has the only suitable terrain for the demanding sport of model gliders with an east–west disposition for about 50 km around and was also previously used by kite flyers and paragliders. A refuge hut, the ''Würzburger Hütte'', belonging to the

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

branch of the German Alpine Society ('' DAV'') is situated on the western slope at a height of 835 m. There are plans to move the hut to a "place more compatible with nature preservation", and also to reach an agreement with the glider flyers who are not allowed to use the mountain any more. Hexenbuche mit Kreuzberg

About 50 m south, below the summit, is the ''Hexenbuchen'' ("witches' beeches") nature monument, which is a favourite photographic subject. From the plateau there is a superb view over Bischofsheim to the

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Berlin-Mitte, Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in ...

, the Osterburg ruins, the

Arnsberg Arnsberg (; ) is a town in the Hochsauerland county, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the location of the Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg (region), Arnsberg administration and one of the three local administration offices of the Ho ...

, the Black Mountains, the Schachen, the Eierhauck, the Dammersfeld, the Reesberg, the valley of the Brend and the upper Sinn. In very good conditions the

Fichtel Mountains The Fichtel Mountains (, ; ) is a mountain range in Germany and the Czech Republic. They extend from the valley of the Red Main River in northeastern Bavaria to the Karlovy Vary Region in western Czech Republic. The Fichtel Mountains contain an ...

can be seen. From the northeastern flank the

Heidelstein The Heidelstein, between Bischofsheim an der Rhön in the Bavarian county of Rhön-Grabfeld and Wüstensachsen in the Hesse, Hessian county of Landkreis Fulda, Fulda, is a mountain, high, on the state border in the mountains of the High Rhön, pa ...

is also visible.

References

External links

More information at rhoenline.de

Access to Himmeldunkberg banned for environmental protection reasons

Conflict between sport and environmental protection e.g at Himmeldunkberg
(

pdf Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

)
Himmeldunkberg in hanggliding guide for model flyers

Walking around the Himmeldunkberg
{{Authority control Extinct volcanoes of Europe Mountains of Bavaria Mountains of Hesse Mountains under 1000 metres Mountains and hills of the Rhön

Location and surrounding area

Geology

Description

See also

References

External links