The trail markers in this neighborhood had been so generously placed that I was following the ones on the left side of the road, when I needed to turn right. He said, “for a smile like that I‘ll tell you that the way you want to go is over there.” Somehow I had missed ANOTHER trail marker. As I was looking, a man came out of the house and asked me to come over. I came to a house which had many varieties and sizes of pumpkins for sale in wooden crates with a locked up metal box to pay for your purchase. Going back was a good 700-800m of mistake, but at least it was flat and next to the pretty river. The turn had been hard to see coming from the other direction which was why I hadn‘t noticed. The ladies assured me the turn was impossible to miss in this direction because it heads uphill at an acute angle from the path. I asked if the Westweg made a turn back the way I had come. As I turned around to head back, two older ladies chatting intensely were passing by. I got out my phone and the map to check things out and realized I had missed something a while ago. Eventually I was seeing the other trail marker that had accompanied mine for a while (Drei Burgen) but the rhombus had disappeared. The trail was well marked though and I followed the red rhombus marker over the bridge and along the river, the Nagold. Then I came into Dillweißenstein and thought I would get lost like I always do when I‘m in a new town on a bicycle. I was in the woods for a while, but I could still hear this road. Within the gate are informational displays about the highlights on the previous and next sections of the hike. The first gate at the start of the Westweg is Pforzheim’s “Golden Gate.”Įach section of trail has a gate to go through which is made out of materials from the region. Wondering if the whole trail was going to be this wide, my question was answered as the path quickly turned into a narrow footpath at the edge of a ravine with the road loudly audible below. I took a few pictures with the first “ Tor” (gate) of the trail before heading up the wide red sandstone steps. Shortly before the start, he headed off in another direction and wished me well. I got off the bus with another man who was also going hiking, and he said, “Westweg? You can come with me, I‘ll show you the way.” We talked a bit about the route on the way to the trailhead, but Badisch is not an accent I‘ve had much contact with before, so I mostly nodded and said things like, “oh yeah?” The Gates of the Westweg Even before my stop was announced, a lady in the seat across from me said “the next one is Kupferhammer, you have to get off there.” This brought a smile to my face because I hadn‘t even spoken with her. Already on the bus I met my first of what would be several kind people along the way. From the train station, I caught bus #3 towards Dillweißenstein to begin the hike at the Kupferhammer guest house. It was beautiful weather when the train pulled into Pforzheim this morning. Want to know the ins and outs of the trail? Check out my guide to everything you need to know to hike the Westweg. This September, I hiked the trail in 12 sections. The Westweg is well-marked throughout by a black-outlined red rhombus on a white field. It along with two others, the Ostweg and Mittleweg, are marked by a rhombus. The Westweg is one of many distance hiking trails in the Black Forest. The route, which travels through the Black Forest from Pforzheim to Basel in Switzerland, has been given the quality seal of Qualitätswanderweg from the Deutsches Wanderverband. The trail, over 280 kilometers long, was laid in 1900 through the work of Phillip Bussemer and is maintained today by the Schwarzwald Verein. The Westweg is Germany’s oldest long distance hiking trail.
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