Hohe Warte

The Hohe Warte is a flat-topped hill rising 820 metres above sea level on the edge of the Swabian Alb. It stands in a thickly wooded area north-east of the St Johann stud farm, barely one kilometre from the Albtrauf escarpment above the entrance to the Ermstal valley. A dense network of paths crosses the woodland, including the Schwäbischer Alb-Nordrand-Weg, the main long-distance trail of the Swabian Alb Association.

The summit carries the Hohe-Warte-Turm, a 23-metre stone lookout tower built in 1923 by members of the Swabian Alb Association. Before it, an observation platform went up in 1896 and was replaced by a light metal frame in 1905, but both had collapsed by 1911. During the inflation of 1922–23 the club raised the present tower at considerable personal cost and inaugurated it on 1 July 1923. The architect Albert Unseld of Ulm designed the tower, which serves as a memorial to members who fell in the First World War. A stone at its foot records the names and now also includes those lost in the Second World War; every second Sunday in October the association holds a memorial service there.

From the top of the tower the view stretches east and north-east across the Ermstal valley and the central Swabian Alb uplands down to the foreland. To the north and west the Schurwald forest, the Schönbuch and the countryside around Tübingen appear. On exceptionally clear days the Alps are visible in the far south. At the foot of the tower a fire pit is provided for visitors, and the tower itself remains unlocked day and night.