Teichelberg

The Große Teichelberg is a 685-metre basalt hill in the Steinwald range, part of the Fichtelgebirge in northern Bavaria. It stands two kilometres north-east of its smaller neighbour and overlooks the railway line from Weiden to Oberkotzau along its northern slope. The mountain is owned by the Bavarian state forest and managed by the Waldsassen forest office. Its geological value comes from a 21-million-year-old lava flow that cooled into a thick basalt layer up to forty metres deep. The exposed quarry walls show vertical basalt columns up to thirty metres tall, left intact when mining stopped in 2018. Experts regard this rock as unusually strong and homogeneous, once quarried for road and rail ballast. Visitors walk through a protected forest of ancient beeches, lindens and bird-cherries that reach 230 years old. Rare birds such as black storks and Uhus nest here, while wildcats breed in the slopes. A local legend tells of helpful dwarf miners called Hankerln who once guarded hidden gold near the Hankel spring.