Warndt Forest Trail

The path is marked as a circular hiking trail with the blue-green logo on a white background of the Premium Trails Region Saarbrücken. The starting point of the hike is the parking lot in the center of Karlsbrunn opposite the hunting lodge. We cross the meadow, at the level of the sign "Wastewater Treatment Plant Karlsbrunn" we cross the country road L 276 and take the shady path through deciduous forest steeply uphill. After exiting the forest, continue towards the small Meisenberg, at the gate at the forest entrance turn right, shortly afterwards turn left downhill through the forest over a small stream to the Sproßmann spring, a small pond with water lilies. At the pond turn left, on wonderfully soft forest ground, we come to a track system of the former Warndt mine. Over the tracks it goes first uphill, then continue on a wide path and again downhill under the railway line. At the second railway bridge turn left and immediately right again, after about 250 m turn right again into the forest path and follow the markings along a beautiful forest path along a stream valley with a small pond until we reach a somewhat hidden memorial stone on the right. This commemorates an assistant forester who was shot here by a poacher. From here we walk straight ahead a bit to a crossroads, turn right, go uphill a bit on a wide path, then continue level, until we turn left into a narrow forest path which leads down into the Grohbruchbach valley. There we turn left and walk a bit through the Grohbruchbach valley to a junction, there we turn right twice to go around the barriers to the drinking fountain.

In the hollow we find an overgrown pond, in front of it a fountain with drinking water. Straight ahead it continues along the forest edge accompanied by wet meadows and reeds. After the idyllic path, we come to a large crossroads. We go left towards the sports field, behind it we see a headframe. In front of the sports field we turn right and climb up natural paths into the forest until we come to a meadow where, if we are lucky, we can encounter water buffalo. On the left we see the houses of St. Nikolaus. At the forest edge we continue left downhill on a path and a stairway down to the road. After crossing it, we reach the beautiful St. Nikolaus pond via a short steep path, which was created for a monastic settlement and served fish farming as well as to drive a mill with hydropower. Here a stop at the local gastronomy is recommended.

Along the pond it goes left over a short meadow path back into the forest, via a narrow forest path to the Bishop's pond, at the end of the pond it goes straight steeply up over a difficult forest path, at the top it makes a small left-right bend and then goes slightly uphill to the next wide path. We turn left onto it, across the intersection straight ahead on a slightly downhill path, to the left of the path practiced eyes can still see tank traps in the forest. Down below we see an old train signal hut of the French mine, here a mine railway ran from Freyming-Merlebach to St.-Nikolaus shaft to bring miners in; if you look right, you can see the St.-Nikolaus shaft. At the signal hut we turn right.

Now we follow a forest path that turns into a trail – always slightly uphill. At the top we touch the French community Freyming-Merlebach (if we go briefly left at the barrier at the top, we can see a partnership monument on French ground, then we have to return). Turn right onto a wide forest path and follow the trail markings towards the Carrière de Freyming viewing platform. The path takes us a long stretch along the border and along the quarry. At the viewing platform, we have a magnificent view into the quarry where sand was extracted to fill in the French mine. From the quarry we walk straight ahead to a fork where we turn right uphill into a forest path, we follow it along a small quarry where stones for the Evangelical church Karlsbrunn were quarried. Now we go down the stone hill via steps, then straight on a wide path along a pond, where we turn left and go uphill to the game park that we walk through in a loop (we see wild boar, sika deer, red deer and mountain goats). From the goat enclosure we go over the playground and thus reach our starting point again.