Just joining me on the Westweg? You can read all about the first three days of this Quality Hike in part 1. The trail is Germany’s oldest long distance hike, traveling 280 kilometers through the Black Forest in the state of Baden-Württemberg. I hiked the trail in 12 days and this post is about days 4, 5 and 6 – the Westweg from Unterstmatt to Hausach.
Day 4 – Unterstmatt to Alexanderschanze – 29 km
Oy! Today was a long day! It started with excellent breakfast at the Hochkopfstub. I definitely recommend staying at this place, even if you decide to stay in the Unterstandshütten most of the way. It’s where I had the best Käsespätzle and breakfast was huge (gotta satiate that hiker hunger!). When I left, I wandered through Unterstmatt, almost taking the wrong path. Unsure, I walked back towards the Drei Tannen guesthouse where people were having breakfast on picnic benches and asked if anyone knew which way. A woman answered that I had to go up around the ski lift and onto a path in the woods there. I would have been wrong if I had kept going, so I‘m glad I stopped to ask.
Hiking Friends!
This was an enjoyable path through the woods over tree roots and rocks. I arrived at the Ochsenstall hut where a lot of the guys I knew from the trail had planned to stay the night before. I continued following the path up the steep hill until I reached the Hornisgrinde peak at 1166, the highest peak thus far and for the day. There was a squat tower to see the view, so I went up. When I came down, the two women I had met the day before were arriving at the top with a Danish guy I had seen previously on the trail. He continued on and I chatted with Daniella and Anna Maria before we decided to head on together.
Mummelsee
It was a quick walk to the Hornisgrinde restaurant where we peered over the edge to see the Mummelsee below. We lost the red rhombus briefly, but a man told us how we could reach the Mummelsee instead. He walked with us to the lake, I think a bit lonely for company as he was staying in a nearby hut and completing day hikes on his own.
At the Mummelsee, I saw my forth gate of the Westweg. Much of the rest of the way gets a bit blurry because Anna Maria, Daniella, and I were deep in conversation the whole time. We hiked up two ski slopes, went the wrong way again (due to construction and rerouting of the trail, not our fault! Many others were confused too), passed several other huts with restaurants, sat on the ground to take a break when we couldn‘t find any benches, sat on the first bench we saw in a heath up on the mountain, and had a lot of panorama views which I could barely enjoy because I was so tired. And we saw a snake! A real live snake!
Weekends on the Westweg are Busy
A lot of the trail today was on these hard-packed forestry roads. After the halfway mark, the trail did not go up or down as steeply anymore but these roads were kind of boring. We also had to jump out of the way of E-mountain bikers a lot. Not their fault, but why are we not on a hiking path for HIKERS? Perhaps I hadn‘t eaten enough towards the end of the journey and was getting very cranky, but the last half was not often on nice trail. And it also paralleled the Schwarzwaldhochstaße, a beautiful highway drive through the forest for cars and an unpleasant caucauphony for hiker’s ears.
At the end of 26 kilometers, we arrived at the Zuflucht (a restaurant/hotel appropriately named “retreat”), where we met Freiburg guy and Danish guy. Daniella and Anna Maria decided to call it quits here and have a beer. Since they were getting picked up to go home, it didn’t matter if it was there or at Alexanderschanze. I pressed on for the last 3.5 km to Alexanderschanze and called Hotel Schwarzwald Kniebis when I got there. Many hotels which are not directly along the trail offer a pick-up service. They cooked me a special dinner, since I’m vegetarian, which was really nice. And in the morning, they will bring me the 2.5 kilometers back to the trail.
Third Day was the Worst
Oh and somewhere along the way today, I bumped into the Pforzheim guys, but they went on ahead and I didn‘t see them again. And they were right, the third day is the worst. My body was great all day (until around km 20 when everything understandably started to get tired) and my feet are fine. I’m looking forward to the next two days. They’ll be shorter and are apparently pearls of the Westweg.
Day 5 – Alexanderschanze to Harkhof – 17.7 km
On the ride from the hotel to Alexanderschanze this morning, I noticed another one of the Westweg gates. From the trail, I saw a sign for a detour to it from the Westweg, but it was 1600m away!
Off to a Great Start
From the very start of today’s route I was happy. The trail was good immediately: a narrow dirt footpath through the woods. I didn’t see a soul for kilometers. The route did continue to follow the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse for a bit. When the road began to turn away from the path at the Bauernkopf Mountain, an amazing valley panorama opened before me. Another man was also enjoying the view here, taking pictures. He gladly took one of me too (and my long shadow created by the early morning sun).
I walked by two huts, Hildahütte and Lettstädter Höhe, pausing a moment to take in the beauty of each because they looked so idyllic. I rested at the second one, even taking off my shoes since I had already come 6 kilometers. From there, I hiked past a lake from above, the Glaswaldsee. Shortly afterwards, I met an elderly couple resting on a bench at an intersection of paths. They told me about their journey on the Westweg from forty years ago! They had made it about 5 days but the weather had gotten so bad that they had to call it quits. The following year they took up where they had left off and finished the whole trail together. #relationshipgoals
Hildahütte 
Glaswaldsee
More Trail Friends
As I left them, a pair of hikers was coming up quickly behind me. They also stopped to talk with the old couple and then caught up to me at a point when the trail turned steeply downhill. We began talking and ended up walking the whole way together. Isabella and Völker are a father-daughter team continuing the Westweg where they left off 12 years ago. Isabella is the same age as me and was constantly apologizing for her father’s political and cultural opinions, but I enjoyed the day with them a lot nonetheless. The paths were excellent all day, but I can‘t say I paid much attention to the woods because I was so busy talking. We stopped at one point to take a break and they shared Zwetschgen (Italian prune plums) with me from the trees in their garden.
Isa took my picture at the Freiersberger Tor 
I love those mountain blues!
Harkhof
All of a sudden we were at the Harkhof, a restaurant and guesthouse directly on the trail. Sadly, Monday is their rest day so it wasn’t open. I said goodbye to Isa and Völker there because they were continuing on to Hausach, my destination for the following day. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t meet them again on the trail. I called Pension Kempfenhof and waited in the parking lot to get picked up. When the car arrived not 10 minutes later, another woman was hiking down the hill and was headed to the same hotel. We rode the 4 km to Oberharmersbach together. Little did I know that this was the first moment of many together along the trail.
Oberharmersbach
I got a room with a balcony on the top floor and the view was incredible! I could see the whole village in the valley. It was absolutely gorgeous! I began to feel very lucky that the Harkhof was closed. The nearest (only?) restaurant in town is a good half kilometer away, but I would manage the “far walk” as today wasn‘t so long. My feet were still a bit tired from the nearly 30 kilometer day yesterday. It’s good that there are these two shorter days in the middle of the hike to relax and recuperate a bit.
Oberharmersbach 
Pension Kempfenhof
Day 6 – Harkhof to Hausach – 20+ km
There were four hikers at breakfast this morning: me, Susanne (who shared the ride with me to the hotel yesterday), another woman, and a man. We got driven to the start of the hike in groups of 2; I went with Susanne first and then Maria went with Herman. We got dropped off directly on the trail! I will miss Oberharmersbach; it was so cute! The sawmill was sometimes loud, but otherwise it was a cozy little village in a pretty valley.
Cow Congestion
Barely 100 m from the start, Susanne and I encountered a group of cows congesting the trail. There was woods downhill to our right and a meadow uphill on the left. The cows were coming out of the woods and blocking the road, while some were already in the field. A group of four large cows obstructed the path by standing perpendicular to it. One of them seemed to be bullying the others by shoving and jumping on them. Eventually some cows moved out of the way and we were able to squeeze through.
Detour to Brandenkopf
The trail began to head uphill and Susanne said I should go on, since I’m a bit faster on inclines. About 2 kilometers from the start there is a trail variation to the Brandenkopf which adds 5km to the trip. I opted to do this since the day would only be around 15 km otherwise. When trail began to decline a lot, I started to get nervous about whether or not I had taken a wrong turn. Then I saw a red rhombus and felt assured that this was the correct way to go. After going down more than expected, the trail regained the altitude and then some until I reached the top of Brandenkopf. The Hütte there had a rest day that day, but the tower was still open. The views were great from the top (but I’m starting to not know the difference between the viewpoints)!
Am I Lost Again?
Leaving the tower, the trail variation quickly meets the original trail. There I ran into Maria and Herman coming towards me! “Am I going the wrong direction?” I asked. They were taking the “old timers” route they assured me so they could be in Hausach sooner. Relieved, I continued on the 13 km main Westweg route to Hausach instead of the 7 km detour.
Somewhere along the way, the trail began to feel longer than the 15 plus 5 km I had planned. I went by several Hütten. One was really cool with solar panels and a roof covered in moss, although also on a Ruhetag (rest day). A few times along the way I met a young couple carrying a lot of luggage on their backs (from here on: the Tübingen couple). They had their tent with them for one night in which they could not get a hotel accommodation. Tough!
On the trail, I saw several spots where new windmills are being built. Sadly, this requires enormous roads to be built for the construction vehicles. These wide cracks in the forest are like canyons between the trees.
Hausach
It took forever until I reached the Spitzfelsen overlooking the villages of Hausach and Wolfach. The view was great but the town looked soo far away! And it was! Another 3 kilometers down, down, downhill to arrive in town. The trail was just as steep as the descent into Forbach a few days ago, but now my body and feet were a bit more prepared to handle it (although definitely tired by the end!).
In Hausach, I needed to run a few errands. I went to the post office and took some photographs. I nearly bumped into Herman while he was reading a poem on a banner. There were many around town, but I hadn’t noticed them before. Strangely, this very poem he stood in front of was the same poem I memorized for a foreign language poetry competition in high school! I couldn’t believe it! What a coincidence.
Westweg gate in Hausach – Kinzigtaltor 
poem by Heinrich Heine
Hotel zur Eiche was filled with hikers. I met the Tübingen couple again, and Susanne was staying there too. There was also a group of 2 couples who I would run into many times over the next several days. I had dinner with Susanne at the hotel (more Käsespätzle) and we talked for a while. The light days of hiking are over – tomorrow will be a tough day with a 1200m climb!
Hausach’s Rathaus 
I planned my Westweg trip using this brochure from Schwarzwald Tourismus.