Küppel Tour

Leave the hiking car park at its entrance along the ascending path. At its end, go left uphill over the street Am Hain and continue immediately beside the first house on the grassy path uphill. You circle the corner plot and hike through meadows above the houses.

Finally, the Schaumburg comes into view on the front left and then the ruin of Balduinburg on the lower right appears in your view. At the end of the meadow, you climb along the willow fence upwards to the access road to Schaumburg, the K 35.

Schaumburg

The origins of Schaumburg date back to the early Middle Ages, but it is first documented in 1197. Between 1850 and 1855, the then owner Archduke Stephan of Austria transformed Schaumburg into a neo-Gothic castle inspired by English models. During this, it received its distinctive, widely visible towers.

You cross the street and follow the signposted hiking trails slightly to the right (also the Lahn Heights Trail and the access to the Lahn hiking trail). At the east corner of the castle wall and next to a solitary beech tree, you enter the forest.

On the left of the path stretches the old wall of the former servant gardens of Schaumburg. A romantic path at the same height runs below the slate wall along a terrace edge, and individual sequoias in the forest reveal that this was an aristocratic garden.

Through a breach in the wall, the wonderful path continues and slowly descends to the uppermost former fish pond of Schaumburg in this small valley. At the small green lake, turn right and ascend steadily on the main path up the Emmaberg. Then follows a longer section where you keep roughly the same altitude and finally stand at a sharp bend of K 34 after a distinctive path bend to the left.

Immediately at this almost right-angled curve, you hike left again on a grassy path into the forest. At the end of this path, you cross the L 323 and descend to the large clearing of the Habenscheid desert with the church. But first, enjoy the view over the landscape from the hiking benches at the forest edge!

Wüsting Habenscheid

It may be surprising that a church larger than a chapel stands quite isolated in the area. On the official topographic map, the designation "Wüsting Habenscheid" is found. Wüsting means that there once was a small village next to the church, which has since "fallen to ruin." The former inhabitants abandoned the village founded in the 8th century during the Thirty Years' War. Over time, the settlement site grew over or was converted by the last farmer, who still lives there, into agricultural land, meadows, and pastures.

In the church from the 12th century, services are still occasionally held.

The hiking trail goes under the church on the paved field path to the left through meadows and pastures and then ascends slightly parallel to the forest. At the end of the forest - just after the high-voltage line - turn right and follow the forest edge downhill again. Lush blackberry bushes to your right provide a balanced supply of vitamins at the right time! Early in the year, there is a harvest of wild cherries here.

Then a small test of your terrain ability awaits you, as after the berry parade, the path continues straight through a small forest area that falls steeply by a few meters in the terrain edge into the Wasenbach valley. Hiking poles come in handy here.

You descend the small valley, first on the right, then on the left bank of the small brook, and thus approach the village of the same name. In front of the first house in Wasenbach, keep left on a grassy path flanked by some plum trees, passing gardens. At the path's end below a small rest area with a water pump, cross the street and go down the Mühlweg past a picturesque half-timbered house.

At the end, cross the main street, keep left, and then immediately right heading up on the Küppel towards the cemetery. Past the cemetery parking lot, initially with views of the village church on the left, gradually ascend the forest path.

At the end of this path, the forest edge offers a beautiful view over heights of the Westerwald in the distance, with the village Steinsberg in front and the wooded summit of the Küppel to the right, rising from the surrounding fields. Follow the forest edge on the left, and after a small fir tree grove, turn right and hike on a grassy path towards the Küppel.

At the first grassy path, turn left, go down towards an orchard, keep right, and ascend the opposite slope. The second path left leads to the street K 37, and shortly before the cemetery near the village outskirts, you go left past a riding stable through pastures downhill towards the forest.

Staying roughly at the same elevation, the route now goes through a sparse coppice of beeches, thus circling the high plateau of Steinsberg.

Coppice Forestry

In the Middle Ages, farmers began coppice forestry to more easily obtain firewood and thinner tree trunks as construction wood or for other purposes. They prevented beeches from growing a single thick trunk by cutting the wood periodically every few years, resulting in a cluster of thin stems growing from one root and creating a characteristic forest image.

You hike above the Rupbach valley - including a beautiful viewpoint with a bench near the cliff edge - and can repeatedly recognize on the right edge of the path that you are walking through the Rhenish Slate Mountains. Near the Steinsberg Leien, you walk above the Lahn valley but without seeing the river. The Küppel tour here follows the forest edge of Steinsberg and leads at the height of a farm standing "in front" of the other houses towards the village edge.

At this farm, go left towards the sports field, then at its eastern edge in a small zigzag path right and immediately left again, crowned with the most beautiful panoramic view in the distance of the Schaumburg as you descend on a long grassy path into the Höllenloch.

The Höllenloch is the wild romantic small valley of the Hellbach, where storms have created a "Mikado forest." You ascend again out of the Höllenloch in tight switchbacks, walk through coppice, and at the end of the path turn left onto a wide forestry road.

You should definitely follow the signpost to Gabelstein, as the short detour offers an impressive view deep down into the Lahn valley from a pavilion at the rock edge.

Then return to this path, initially on a small parallel trail, then on the "forest motorway," and reach the forest edge. Here ascend the first grassy path on the right, then take the first left, cross the country road K 34, and descend the slope immediately again.

At the end of the path, continue right, passing pastures and rows of apple trees on the open heights, and ascend again with Schaumburg as a landmark, descending the slope on a grassy path. The path ends at the K 36, which you follow downhill to the next junction at the Schaumburg Talhof on the right.

At the beginning of the chestnut row, which provides a noble setting for the small ascending street, a path branches off left that cuts off a switchback and continues to cut off the next large switchback. At the end of the path with its distinctive conifer row, climb a small staircase on the left, turn right, and soon find a gap in the high castle wall. Go up the long staircase between the main castle and the outer bailey, thus mastering your last ascent on the Küppel tour! Could the setting be more impressive?

At the end of the stairs, go a few steps up left, then descend on the driveway to the main castle right again. From the first switchback, the path branches off down into the forest towards Balduinstein.

On the left, you finally come across a former basalt quarry with its distinctive dark gray columns, which here almost lie transversely.

Basalt Quarry

Due to the rock layers of the Rhenish Slate Mountains, volcanoes were able to bring glowing masses of rock to the earth's surface repeatedly over geological time. When the liquid basalt flow could cool slowly, it developed the striking columns visible in this quarry. Basalt is a particularly hard rock, often used, among other things, for fortified castle and city walls.

You continue following the path downhill and after some switchbacks reach the forest edge at the Balduinstein waterworks. Descend further past the houses and turn right at the first road. This is the street (without a sign here) "Am Hain," which you follow to its other end. There you encounter the K 25, but turn left in the curve and immediately right again to reach the hiking car park.