Schauinsland

The Schauinsland rises ten kilometres south-east of Freiburg in the Black Forest, its summit reaching 1,284 metres above sea level. The mountain was once known as ‘Erzkasten’ because of silver mining, and the name Schauinsland first appears in records from 1347. Four villages lie close to the slopes: Oberried, Munstertal, Bollschweil and Horben, with Hofsgrund the nearest to the top. On clear autumn mornings a temperature inversion lifts the mist, revealing the Vosges mountains across the Rhine valley. When the air is very clear, the Swiss Alps appear on the southern horizon. Schauinsland’s long mining history produced more than a hundred kilometres of tunnels across twenty-two levels. In the 14th century the miners’ silver helped pay for stained glass in Freiburg Minster. By the early 20th century about 250 men worked underground; production stopped in 1954. The Barbarastollen tunnel now stores Germany’s archived materials and is Europe’s largest long-term archive. A small museum opened in 1997 shows medieval tunnels and shafts cleared by the Steiber research team. Paths lead from Hofsgrund and Horben up through beech and spruce woods to the summit. The old mining tunnel called Kapplerstollen once let midwives and children walk between Kappel and Hofsgrund. A cable car runs from Horben to the top, where a hotel built in 1936 once housed refugees and later students. The mountain hotel ‘Zur Friedrichsruhe’, rebuilt after a fire in 1926, offers beds and appears in a detective novel. Wind turbines stand lower on the slopes, leaving the summit view largely unspoiled.