Table mountains near Gohrisch

The exposed location of the spa town Gohrisch is already evident when arriving by car. Even without mountain hiking, there are good views at times of Lilienstein and the Schrammsteine. At the end of "Neue Hauptstraße" before the turn into Schulstraße, there is a large parking lot.

Following the yellow dot marker, we start the hike towards Stiller Grund. To the right, a meadow area spreads out and to the left, the last buildings of Gohrisch can be seen in the increasingly dense forest. Here is also a "gem" for GDR nostalgics (not visible from the hiking trail)! The Hotel Albrechtshof was formerly a guesthouse of the GDR State Council. Today, of course, the hotel is open to every hiker as accommodation and with its interior design and furnishings is quite a sophisticated example of 1950s architecture.

Our increasingly steep hiking trail now leads into a coniferous forest. The path makes a slight curve to the left and after about 600m from the forest edge, the ascent to Gohrisch begins (southwest side of the rock). Since we have not yet had any major exertion, we decide at the foot of the rock for the somewhat sportier ascent through Falkenschlucht (left). We complete the last stage via wooden ladders. On weekends, you can observe climbers on the neighboring rocks "Abgetrennte Wand" and "Zwerg." Reaching the plateau automatically creates the desire to capture the fantastic surroundings in a picture. The first viewpoint should therefore be the Weather Vane View located on the west side. Especially in clear morning hours, you can enjoy the wonderful panorama of Lilienstein, Königstein, Quirl, and Pfaffenstein. With good visibility, one can see far into the Eastern Ore Mountains and, of course, Dresden.

The tourist development of the rock massif happened relatively late. Only the royal chief forester Emil Grünewald (1842-1892) had three secured paths to the summit laid out by the Mountain Association for the Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland. The shelter established on the east side in 1988 fell into disrepair after World War II and was only rebuilt in 1998. On the east side, there is an unrestricted view of the Schrammsteine and the Großer Zschirnstein. Not far from the shelter, a flight of steps leads down to the Swedish Cave within a few minutes. Centuries ago, the small rock basin served as a hiding place during wartime and offered the farmers a safe refuge.

At the shelter, the steep descent through a rock gorge begins. At the foot of the rock, a path marked with the "red dot" branches off to the left. This path leads to the (closed) soapstone tunnel and is also the shortest way to the parking lot below the Papststein.

Not least because of its easy accessibility by car and the moderate ascent to the guesthouse, Papststein is a popular excursion destination for locals and day tourists. Already in 1829, the royal Saxon forestry administration had the forest on the plateau largely cleared for the benefit of tourism.

From the parking lot east of Papststein, you reach a small rock gorge via a gravel path reinforced with wood, which is managed by a sturdy staircase. And there you stand in front of the mountain guesthouse built in 1862. Despite the easy access, the mountain guesthouse offers enough romance to visitors. The seats on the "stone balconies" are highly sought after. From here, you can watch climbers around the "Hunskirchen." In the evening hours, you experience an atmospheric sunset here. Sometimes colorful dots decorate the northwest horizon... these are the balloonists from Dresden.

From the guesthouse, you reach the viewpoint of Papststein via stairs to the south. Unfortunately, there has been no observation tower here for decades. The white fire lookout tower therefore often causes confusion among tourists. But even without a tower, there is a 180° panorama to the south. In the background, you can see the Hoher Schneeberg with the observation tower, the two Zschirnsteine, the flatter Lasensteine, the Kohlbornstein, the Zirkelstein, the Kaiserkrone, the Schrammsteine; also visible are the basalt cone of Rosenberg and Kaltenberg in Bohemia as well as the Großer Winterberg in the middle of the Hintere Sächsische Schweiz.

By the way, the suffix "-berg" denotes peaks mainly of volcanic origin. The "Steine" (rocks), however, consist almost entirely of sandstone and usually have the shape of a table mountain.

From the viewpoint, you can also look down on the idyllic Papstdorf. Even in GDR times, this was a well-known place for children’s holiday camps. Today, the "Children and Youth Village ERNA" offers comprehensive care for school classes, youth exchanges, and also family trips.

Left next to the supply building, we descend westward via stone-carved steps. After a short time, we pass a ridge path with an iron railing. The path narrows considerably in places. This narrowing is due to a rockfall that occurred in 1972. At that time, an entire rock wall of about 4000 sqm collapsed into the valley. Until a few years ago, large parts of the broken rock wall were still visible in the valley. Meanwhile, vegetation has "archived" this geological event in its own way. Similar rockfalls occurred at the Bastei and also in the Kirnitzschtal. In the border town Herrnskretschen (Bohemian Switzerland), efforts are made to prevent erosion by concreting critical areas of the rock. A rockfall is spectacular today but is a normal process during the millennia-long shaping of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains.

Below the hiking path runs a rock band exposed to intense weathering (due to different hardness of rock layers). Here, you find hollows, which presumably also contributed to the instability of the rock wall in the area of the rockfall.

We now descend toward the valley on wooden steps and shortly reach the Suppelsgrundweg. Here, you can choose a short detour to Papstdorf (right). We go left and follow the path briefly, which continues valleyward toward Gohrisch. The Kleinhennersdorfer Stein rises to our right and we choose the path toward the rocks. At the next sandy intersection, you can learn about sandstone mining on the educational trail at Kleinhennersdorfer Stein. Here also begins the ascent to the attraction of this rock massif: the caves. The layer joint and collapse caves were commercially used about 150 years ago for sandstone mining. Friedrich Herrmann Hempel from Königstein mined the stone, crushed it into coarse scouring sand, and sold it as a cleaning agent. Nature avenged itself in 1918 when he died in a rock collapse.

Especially the Lichterhöhle is very impressive. The remains of a stone wall at the entrance give the impression of a historical dwelling. This still partly applies today because hikers and climbers like to meet here for overnight stays. Unfortunately, open (camp) fires are also prohibited here. The Eishöhle and Hampelhöhle can be crawled through to the great joy of children. Climbing the mountain summit offers few new impressions. The rock is about 50 meters lower than Papststein or Gohrischstein. The rock plateau is forested and there is no significant viewpoint. So, after a last rest, we begin the descent back to Gohrisch. Back to the Suppelsgrundweg and then valleyward to the right runs the return path. We pass the next intersection (educational trail) and take the following left turn off the Suppelsgrundweg. After about 300 m, we turn sharply right at the next intersection and reach the entrance to the town of Gohrisch after a few minutes. Schandauer Straße now leads directly to the parking lot. At the end of the hike, the only problem is deciding into which of the numerous pubs you want to stop...

(c) The hiking description is the property of the Elbsandsteingebirge Verlag