Willingen

The mountains around Willingen are not only particularly high. On a hike from the Ettelsberg to the Kahle-Pön, hikers pass through open heathland that many would not expect to find in the Sauerland. In the Middle Ages, they once shaped the entire region. Today, it takes a lot of effort to preserve the last of these extraordinary natural areas.

Willingen - Mountain Heid Worlds

Ettelsberg - Neuer Hagen - Kahle Pön, this is my hiking route through the Sauerland Heath. By using the hilltops over the centuries, man has created a natural landscape that is now strictly protected.





Blick aus der Ettelsbergbahn in Willingen auf die Seilbahn

I have already heard about the Heidenstraße in several of the Sauerland-Wanderdorf hiking villages. This medieval main traffic route led from Cologne to Leipzig through places such as Wormbach, Oberkirchen, Küstelberg and Medebach. Pastor Ulrich Stipp from Schmallenberg-Oberkirchen had already given me some information about it: "Anyone who thinks of the name Heidenstraße as a road to the world of the Heids, the unbelievers, is on the wrong track. The Heidenstraße was the road through the heathlands that characterized the Sauerland at that time. Even in the early Middle Ages, people cleared the forests and turned them into charcoal. The open areas were then used for grazing cattle. The forest only returned in the 19th century."

Nowhere else in the Sauerland are there as many areas of heathland as on the hilltops around Willingen. And nowhere else is the ascent to the highest mountains in the Sauerland so easy: from Willingen, I take the modern cable car up the Ettelsberg to the observation tower. The Hochheideturm tower with its comfortable elevator inside is reflected in the pond from which the snowmaking equipment is supplied with water in winter.





Blaubeere

At an average altitude of 800 meters, my path leads me through the forests around the Hegekopf to the largest Hochheide in the Sauerland: the Neue Hagen. At the Hoppecke spring, I meet a flock of sheep with a shepherdess. Samantha Josefin Dirks can tell me a lot about the Heid, how it was created and how it has been preserved: "It must have been a drudgery when this landscape was created. In the fall, the turf was removed from the mountain heaths with small hoes. This was called plaggen, which is also where the term 'plagerei' comes from. The stuff was used as winter bedding for the stables. The next spring it was really well mixed with cow dung - a great fertilizer for the fields in the valley. Up here, the soil naturally became impoverished in the long term." This is how the heath landscapes were created, where the heather now blooms in August - a nature reserve in which people constantly have to lend a hand. "The forest wants to reclaim the hilltops," the shepherdess explains to me. "We have to remove the bushes and sometimes plaggen - but the most important thing is that animals graze on the Heid, just like in the old days. This is the only way to preserve the plant communities. Shepherding hasn't been economically viable for a long time, especially not with such a funny mix of historic sheep breeds that are now rare. I have Heidschnucken, mountain sheep, Suffolk, Isle de France and a few goats in my flock - around 800 animals in total. We get paid to look after the countryside here at this time of year."





Vesperzeit in der Hütte Kahle Pön

How calming it is to move across the Heid at the pace of the sheep, chatting or keeping quiet, listening and also tasting. Millions of blueberries are ripe at our feet. As I pick a handful, the shepherdess tells me that the blueberry pickers are often annoyed by the sheep that roam the Heid at the exact time of ripening. "But without our sheep, the blueberry pickers would soon have nothing left to pick," the shepherdess explains. "The animals bite off the tips of the bushes. They are then 'afraid' of dying out and produce more berries next year. The sheep also eat blueberries, picking up the seeds from the plant and dropping them somewhere else - nicely packed in good fertilizer. The sheep rejuvenate the Heid and keep it alive. Without sheep at this time of year, there would be no more blueberries in a few years and soon no more heather. The bushes would come first and the trees later."

We continue along the Uplandsteig, which circles Willingen over 64 km, to the next Heid on the Kahle Pön. I treat myself to an evening snack at the Graf Stolberg Hütte on the Knoll. Here you get a great view over the neighboring Medebach Bay in addition to the regional organic products for free.

At sunset, I'm standing right on the border between Hessen and North Rhine-Westphalia on the edge of the Heid on the Kahle-Pön. The starting point of my hike today can always be seen as a clear landmark on the horizon: the Hochheideturm tower on the Ettelsberg. Almost exactly behind it, the sun sinks into the haze and lets honey-colored light flow over the Heid.

Klaus-Peter Kappe

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