Karstwanderweg – Circular route 18 around the Scharzfeld Dolomites

You walk through forest, geology, Ice Age and Stone Age, past cliffs, encounter cave bears, and still hear the echo of French artillery. It is recommended to walk the route clockwise, so that the opportunities for refreshment come when you have worked up enough hunger.

From the start, you go up to the Steinkirche, a natural cave crevice where, at the end of the last Ice Age, hunters and gatherers sought shelter and maintained campfires. In the Middle Ages, this was expanded into a church space with pulpit, baptismal font, and crypt. The further path leads over species-rich semi-dry grasslands to the Ritterstein, where the Easter fire is traditionally lit with a wide view over the southern Harz. The path descends into the Bremke valley where a campsite, outdoor pool, restaurant, and above that a forest playground await, and then steadily climbs through deciduous forest to the Rottsteinklippen. It continues through deciduous forest on the ridge clockwise around the source basins of the streams in the Rott and the Hasenwinkelbach to the Frauenstein. In the underbrush are still the artillery positions of French troops from 15.9.1761, from which—the Seven Years' War was ongoing—the Scharzfels castle was bombarded into ruin.

Scharzfels, built around 1000, had great territorial-historical significance. Information panels illuminate the history and former buildings. After refreshments at the "Schlossgaststätte" (closed on Mon, Tue and in winter Wed), the route descends into the Hasenwinkeltal to then climb on the other side, where a tour through the Einhornhöhle is a "must" for every visitor to the southern Harz. Also here, before or after the cave, the "Haus Einhorn" invites you to stop. The cave is a place of long-lasting scientific research, ranging from the legendary unicorn through the ice ages and cave bears to Neanderthals and early researchers such as Leibniz, Goethe, or Virchow.

Along the Kaiserklippe and other dolomite rocks, the path goes westward and leads down at the edge of meadows with beautiful views of the wide Harz foreland into the Rott, then continues climbing to the Schulberg, where rocks and shelters show where people lived in the Middle Stone Age. Through the Bremke valley is the last stretch of the path to the campsite and from there up again to the already familiar Steinberg with the Ritterstein. "How wonderfully quiet it is in Scharzfeld, far from the noise of cars." Thus Hermann Löns wrote around 1910 as he rested at the Ritterstein. And today? Just a few steps back to the starting point.