The Hohloh is a mountain, , on the eastern main ridge of the

Northern Black Forest The Northern Black Forest (german: Nordschwarzwald) refers to the northern third of the Black Forest in Germany or, less commonly today, to the northern half of this mountain region. Geography The Northern Black Forest is bounded in the north b ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It lies near the village of Kaltenbronn in the borough of

Gernsbach Gernsbach () is a town in the district of Rastatt, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the river Murg, east of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Twin towns are Baccarat in France and Pergola, Marche in Italy. The town is the hist ...

, a town in the county of

Rastatt Rastatt () is a town with a Baroque core, District of Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain on the Murg river, above its junction with the Rhine and has a population of around 50,000 (2011). Rastatt was an ...

in the German state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

. Its summit is the highest point in the borough of Gernsbach and the eastern chain of the Northern Black Forest, the ridge between the rivers

Murg Murg may refer to: Places * Murg (Aare), a river of Switzerland * Murg (Northern Black Forest), a river and right tributary of the Rhine in the districts of Freudenstadt and Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ** Murg Valley Railway * Murg (Sou ...

and

Enz The Enz is a river flowing north from the Black Forest to the Neckar in Baden-Württemberg. It is 106 km long. Its headstreams – the Little Enz (german: Kleine Enz) and the Great Enz or Big Enz (''Große Enz'') – rise in the Northern B ...

. A mountain pass runs northeast of the summit plateau between the two river valleys passing over the

saddle The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...

of Schwarzmiss (). Characteristic of the Hohloh is its flat

bunter sandstone The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsands ...

kuppe A ''Kuppe'' is the term used in German-speaking central Europe for a mountain or hill with a rounded summit that has no rock formation, such as a tor, on it. A range of such hills is called a ''Kuppengebirge''. In geology the term also refers to ...

'' with its

observation tower An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, and ...

, the Hohloh Tower (''Hohlohturm'') and a

raised bog Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation (ombrot ...

and bog lakes on the

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ...

which are protected.

Geography

Location

The Hohloh lies within the

Central/North Black Forest Nature Park The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park (german: Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord) is located in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It covers an area of 3,750 km2 and was founded in December 2000. As of 2018, it is the third-largest nature pa ...

, mainly on the forest estates of the Gernsbach hamlet of Kaltenbronn, which is situated 2 kilometres east of the summit. On the western edge of the plateau, parts of the mountainside belong to the villages and municipalities of Reichental, Weisenbach, Langenbrand and Gausbach, which lie in the valley of the

. Since the municipal reforms in Baden-Württemberg in the 1970s, Kaltenbronn and Reichental have been part of the municipality of

, Langenbrand and Gausbach belong to

Forbach Forbach ( , , ; gsw, Fuerboch) is a commune in the French department of Moselle, northeastern French region of Grand Est. It is located on the German border approximately 15 minutes from the center of Saarbrücken, Germany, with which it co ...

(all in the county of Rastatt). The forests of Kaltenbronn belong administratively to the western Murg valley, although they are east of the main crest. The boundary between the Eberstein or Old

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden ...

Murg valley (''

Amt Amt is a type of administrative division governing a group of municipalities, today only in Germany, but formerly also common in other countries of Northern Europe. Its size and functions differ by country and the term is roughly equivalent to ...

'' of Gernsbach) and the

Old Württemberg Old Württemberg (german: link=no, Altwürttemberg) was the princely territory of Württemberg prior to the imperial treaty or ''Reichsdeputationshauptschluss'' of 1803, as opposed to the New Württemberg which followed and which acquired a larg ...

Enz valley ( Oberamt Wildbad) did not run along the watershed of the Hohloh, but about two or three kilometres east of it. The entire Hohloh region thus lay in Baden.

Natural region grouping

According to the Handbook of the Natural Region Divisions of Germany the Hohloh is part of the major unit group of the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is ...

(no. 15), of the Grinden Black Forest and Enz Heights (''Grindenschwarzwald und Enzhöhen'') major unit (no. 151), the Enz Heights (''Enzhöhen'') sub-unit (no. 151.1) and ''Enzmissen'' natural region (no. 151.11). Towards the east the countryside descends into the natural region of ''Enzriedel'' (151.10), to the southwest into the sub-unit of the Grinden Black Forest (''Grindenschwarzwald'') (151.0) and natural region of Grinden of the Middle Murg Valley (''Grinden des mittleren Murgtals'') (151.02) and to the northwest into the major unit of the Northern Riverine Black Forest (''Nördlicher Talschwarzwald'') (152), sub-unit of the Bühlertal Forest (''Bühlertaler Wald'') (152.1) and natural region of the Murg Forest (''Murgwald'') (152.11).

Hills and high points

The Hohloh is . Its flat summit dome or ''

'' is the highest point on the eastern mountain chain of the Northern Black Forest, the ridge between the valleys of the

and

. Its opposite number is the

Hornisgrinde The Hornisgrinde, 1,164 m (3,820 ft), is the highest mountain in the Northern Black Forest of Germany. The Hornisgrinde lies in northern Ortenaukreis district. Origin of the name The name is probably derived from Latin, and essentiall ...

, the highest point on the western mountain chain. On many maps, an elevation of is given; this is the height of the nearby site of the Hohloh Tower.

Topography

The summit region of the Hohloh is formed by a broad

. In the west the plateau is bounded mainly by steep slopes with a pre-alpine character in the valley of the Murg which, like the plateau, lie on the bunter sandstone

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system ...

. Below a height of about 640 metres, this is succeeded by the

basement A basement or cellar is one or more Storey, floors of a building that are completely or partly below the storey, ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, ...

and fertile soils on

Forbach Granite Forbach Granite (german: Forbachgranit), also called Raumünzach Granite (''Raumünzach-Granit''), is a type of granite rock that occurs in the Northern Black Forest. It is part of the Northern Black Forest's granitic massif, to which Bühlerta ...

, recognisable by a step in the landscape with a

spring horizon A spring horizon is an impervious layer of rock reaching the surface, along which springs emerge. Since aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or ...

, the transition from coniferous to mixed beech forest and the onset of grassy valleys. To the east, facing the Enz valley, the

relief energy Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin wor ...

is markedly lower, the mountainsides are gentler, the boundary of the plateau less clear. The Hohloh region is drained, corresponding to the large-scale direction of dip of the bunter sandstone, predominantly into the eastern valleys (the Kegeltal valley, where the mountain pass over the Schwarzmiss runs, and the Rombach valley), long

side valley Side valleys and tributary valleys are valleys whose brooks or rivers flow into greater ones. Upstream, the valleys can be classified in an increasing order which is equivalent to the usual orographic order: the tributaries are ordered from tho ...

s of the Great Enz. To the north the main chain heads for the Langmartskopf (Langmahd), Teufelsmühle and the Dobel, to the south it transitions to the Breitloh region, followed by the Toter Mann, the

Schramberg Schramberg is a town in the district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the eastern Black Forest, 25 km northwest of Rottweil. With all of its districts (Talstadt, Sulgen, Waldmössingen, Heiligenbronn, Schönbron ...

and the village of

Besenfeld Seewald is a municipality in the Freudenstadt district in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It lies in the Black Forest. The source of the river Nagold is situated in the municipality. There is a dam in the river near the village Erzgrube, ...

Nature

Plateau and raised bogs

On the southern part of the plateau is the Hohlohmiss, a ''

misse The Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) is a series of experiments mounted externally on the International Space Station (ISS) that investigates the effects of long-term exposure of materials to the harsh space environment. ...

'' with

s and several bog ponds, including the Great and Little Hohlohsee. Like the neighbouring Wildseemoor, these are

biogenic A biogenic substance is a product made by or of life forms. While the term originally was specific to metabolite compounds that had toxic effects on other organisms, it has developed to encompass any constituents, secretions, and metabolites of p ...

and not

geomorphological Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: , ', "earth"; , ', "form"; and , ', "study") is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or n ...

landforms. They have developed since the last ice age about 10,000 years ago due to the high rainfall on the acidic '' klebsands'' of the upper conglomerate horizon of Middle Bunter. Due to their outstanding ecological importance, the Hohlohmiss and Wildseemoor have been protected as part of the Kaltenbronn Nature Reserve.

Reserves

The Hohlohseemoor south of the Hohloh summit has been a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

since 1940. Since 2000, the ''Hohlohsee bei Kaltenbronn'' Nature Reserve together with the Wildseemoor and surrounding '' bannwald'' and '' schonwald'' have been part of the Kaltenbronn Nature Reserve and Protected Forest which covers an area of 17.5 km². On the mountain there are parts of the

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

of the Middle Murg Valley (''Mittleres Murgtal''), CDDA No. 323009; 1940; 76.1 km²); the reserves being excluded from it. The nature reserve is part of the fauna-flora habitat region of ''Kaltenbronner Enzhöhen'' (FFH-No. 7316-341; 10.4244 km²). In addition there are elements of the Northern Black Forest bird reserve (''Vogelschutzgebiet Nordschwarzwald'', VSG No. 7415-441; 360.4511 km²) on the mountain. The Kaltenbronn region with the Hohloh was considered for inclusion in the

Black Forest National Park The Black Forest National Park (german: Nationalpark Schwarzwald) is a national park in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the southwest of Germany. It has an area of and is located on the main crest of the Northern Black Forest, mainly between ...

, established in 2014,c.f. PricewaterhouseCoopers & ö:Concept: ''Gutachten zum potenziellen Nationalpark im Nordschwarzwald.'' Gutachten zu Händen des Ministeriums für Ländlichen Raum und Verbraucherschutz des Landes Baden-Württemberg. Berlin, April 2013. but was not eventually included.

Usage

Hohloh Tower and transmitter

At the northern end of the summit plateau, at a height of , is the Hohloh Tower (''Hohlohturm''), officially the Emperor William Tower (''Kaiser-Wilhelm-Turm''), an

, from which there are often wide views in the Northern Black Forest. It stands about 200 metres north of the summit and on the edge of the steep slope where a better view of the Murg Valley to the northwest may be had. As early as 1853 the Kaltenbronn Forestry Department directed the construction of an observation tower that, as well as having long-distance views into the Murg and Rhine valleys as well as of Württemberg and Hohenzollern in favourable weather, and even of the

Bernese Alps , topo_map= Swiss Federal Office of Topography swisstopo , photo=BerneseAlps.jpg , photo_caption=The Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau , country= Switzerland , subdivision1_type= Cantons , subdivision1= , parent= Western Alps , borders_on= , ...

, about 250 kilometres away. A few years later a wooden tower with a

toposcope A toposcope, topograph, or orientation table is a kind of graphic display erected at viewing points on hills, mountains or other high places which indicates the direction, and usually the distance, to notable landscape features which can be seen f ...

was built, which was accessible until 1895. In 1897 the

Black Forest Club The Schwarzwaldverein (Black Forest Club or Black Forest Association) was founded in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) in 1864, making it the oldest German hiking and mountaineering club. The Schwarzwaldverein has almost 90,000 members in 241 loc ...

had a new tower built of bunter sandstone from the local area (work started on 10 May and it was completed on 12 August), which was 22.2 metres high at that time. Due to the height to which the trees had grown, it was raised in 1968 by a further 6.4 metres to the present 28.6 metres. This extra section can be seen from inside the tower: in the area of the old top of the tower the material of the

newel A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having str ...

changes from sandstone ashlars to

Béton brut ''Béton brut'' () is a French term that translates in English to “raw concrete”. The term is used to describe concrete that is left unfinished after being cast, displaying the patterns and seams imprinted on it by the formwork.''Exposed concr ...

. The staircase has 158 steps. The observation platform is at a height of roughly 1,012 m. Today the tower is managed by the Gernsbach branch of the Black Forest Club and owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg. On 21 October 2010 a licensing agreement was made between the Black Forest Club and the Forest Commission of Baden-Württemberg, prior to that its use was not regulated legally. The views reach from the

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...

to the southwest, over the Palatine Forest to the northwest, the

Odenwald The Odenwald () is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Location The Odenwald is located between the Upper Rhine Plain with the Bergstraße and the ''Hessisches Ried'' (the northeastern se ...

to the north as far as the Jurassic crags of the

Swabian Jura The Swabian Jura (german: Schwäbische Alb , more rarely ), sometimes also named Swabian Alps in English, is a mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, extending from southwest to northeast and in width. It is named after the region of ...

. In very good visibility the Feldberg in the

Southern Black Forest The Southern Black Forest (german: Südschwarzwald) is the highest part of the Black Forest, an area heavily transformed by ice age glaciation south of a line roughly from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen. The term High Black Forest is n ...

and several peaks of the

Swiss Alps The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Sw ...

can be made out on the southern horizon; to the north occasionally the

Großer Feldberg The Großer Feldberg ('Great Field Mountain') is, at a height of 879.5 metres, the highest elevation of the Taunus mountains, and of the entire Rhenish Massif. It is situated in the Hochtaunuskreis district in Hesse, Germany. The Feldberg/Tau ...

in the

Taunus The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is ''Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and '' Altkönig'' (798 m). The Taunus range spans ...

may be seen. The panorama was improved further in the 1990s as a result of hurricanes

Vivian Vivian may refer to: *Vivian (name), a given name and also a surname Toponyms * Vivian, Louisiana, U.S. * Vivian, South Dakota, U.S. * Vivian, West Virginia, U.S. * Vivian Island, Nunavut, Canada * Ballantrae, Ontario, a hamlet in Stouffville, ...

, Wiebke and

Lothar Lothar is a Danish, Finnish, German, Norwegian, and Swedish masculine given name, while Lotár is a Hungarian masculine given name. Both names are modern forms of the Germanic Chlothar (which is a blended form of ''Hlūdaz'', meaning "fame", ...

which destroyed large areas of trees on the summit plateau. Between the tower and the summit, on the site of a former military

radio relay Radio stations that cannot communicate directly due to distance, terrain or other difficulties sometimes use an intermediate radio relay station to relay the signals. A radio relay receives weak signals and retransmits them, often in a different d ...

installation is now a civilian

transmission mast Radio masts and towers are typically tall structures designed to support antennas for telecommunications and broadcasting, including television. There are two main types: guyed and self-supporting structures. They are among the tallest human-mad ...

and transmitter site that enables

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Telephony is supposed to specifically point to a voice-only service or connection, though sometimes the ...

in the remote highlands.

Transport, hiking and sport

About 930 metres northeast of the summit of the Hohloh and 800 metres northeast of the Hohloh Tower on the northeastern edge of the summit plateau is the Schwarzmiss saddle (), over which the ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'') are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are roads ...

'' 76b runs between

Hilpertsau Hilpertsau is a village in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is administratively part of the town of Gernsbach in the Rastatt district. Geography The village is located south of Gernsbach in the Murg Valley. History The first documented men ...

on the

and Sprollenhaus on the Great Enz. Both on the Schwarzmiss as well as below it (for example in the hamlet of Kaltenbronn) are several hikers'

car park A parking lot (American English) or car park ( British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surfac ...

s. They are starting points for walks, mountain bike tours and '' loipes. There are public bus services to Schwarzmiss and Kaltenbronn from the Murg and Enz valleys. The Black Forest ridgeways of West Way and

Middle Way The Middle Way ( pi, ; sa, ) as well as "teaching the Dharma by the middle" (''majjhena dhammaṃ deseti'') are common Buddhist terms used to refer to two major aspects of the Dharma, that is, the teaching of the Buddha.; my, အလယ်� ...

as well as the

E1 European long distance path The E1 European long-distance path, or just E1 path, is one of the European long-distance paths designated by the European Ramblers' Association. It has a total length of some . It begins in Norway at Nordkapp, and crosses the Kattegat between ...

run via Kaltenbronn and the Hohloh past the Hohlohsee and Hohloh Tower. The Hohlohseemoor is accessible on a board walk. The long distance ski trails on the ridge run north to the Dobel (15 km from Schwarzmiss) and Wildbad-Sommerberg (12.5 km), to the south as far as

(16 km). At Kaltenbronn there is a downhill ski slope with

drag lift A surface lift is a type of cable transport for snow sports in which skiers and snowboarders remain on the ground as they are pulled uphill. While they were once prevalent, they have been overtaken in popularity by higher-capacity and higher-c ...

s. The Old Wine Road (''Alte Weinstraße''), a historical cart track from the lower to upper Murg Valley runs along the ridge of the Hohloh. It bypassed the gorge-like Middle Murg Valley which, until the 18th century, was only accessible on a

mule track A bridle path, also bridleway, equestrian trail, horse riding path, ride, bridle road, or horse trail, is a trail or a thoroughfare that is used by people riding on horses. Trails originally created for use by horses often now serve a wider ...

References

Heinz Fischer: ''Geographische Landesaufnahme: The natural region units on Sheet 169 Rastatt.'' Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde, Bad Godesberg 1967. →&nbs
Online map
(pdf; 4.4 MB) Friedrich Huttenlocher, Hansjörg Dongus: ''Geographische Landesaufnahme: Die naturräumlichen Einheiten auf Blatt 170 Stuttgart.'' Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde, Bad Godesberg 1949, überarbeitet 1967. →&nbs
Online map
(pdf; 4.0 MB) Hubert Intlekofer: ''Geschichte des Kaltenbronn'', p. 11 (see section on

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to inclu ...

). Landesarchivdirektion Baden-Württemberg, Landkreis Rastatt und Landesmedienzentrum Baden-Württemberg (publ.): ''Kreisbeschreibungen des Landes Baden-Württemberg – Der Landkreis Rastatt''. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart, 2002. Vol. 2, , p. 80 ''Verordnung des Regierungspräsidiums Karlsruhe und der Forstdirektion Freiburg über das Natur- und Waldschutzgebiet „Kaltenbronn“''
dated 22 December 2000, retrieved 9 August 2015 Hubert Intlekofer: ''Geschichte des Kaltenbronn'', S. 31 (siehe Abschnitt Literatur). Turmdaten – siehe: A) ''Kunst- und Kulturdenkmale im Landkreis Rastatt und in Baden-Baden'', herausgegeben vom Landkreis Rastatt und der Stadt Baden-Baden. Konrad-Theiss Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2002, , S. 225. B) Inschrift über dem Turmeingang. C) Informationsplatte auf der Aussichtsplattform.

External links

{{commons category
Gernsbacher Alpenblick – Photos of the Hohloh
Mountains under 1000 metres Bogs of Baden-Württemberg Mountains and hills of Baden-Württemberg Mountains and hills of the Black Forest Rastatt (district)