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Hölle Valley (Black Forest)
Encyclopedia
The Höllental in the Black Forest
is a deep valley - in places like a gorge - in the state of Baden-Württemberg
in Germany
. The valley, which is about 9 kilometres long, is located in the southern part of the Southern Black Forest Nature Park about 18 km southeast of Freiburg im Breisgau between Hinterzarten
and Buchenbach
-Himmelreich. The Rotbach stream (also called Höllenbach in the upper Höllental) runs through the valley. "Hölle" is the German word for "hell". In the narrow, dark valley, travellers almost felt like moving underground.
via the Wutach
gorge and Hegau
to Lake Constance
and is part of this tectonically-formed fault. Additionally it could have been created as a result of repeated glaciation of the Black Forest's uplands by ice lakes that could have spilled westwards over the eroded ridgeline. As a result the tributaries of the Höllenbach east of the ridgeline flow initially southeast, turning almost 180° towards the northeast into the Höllental itself, a situation similar to that of the Maloja pass
in Engadin
.
Below the high-lying hollows of Hinterzarten the federal highway
B 31 winds downhill, partly in spectacular loops, at the head of the former glacial valley. In this enclosed bowl with the hamlet of Höllsteig ("Hell Path"), the so-called Löffeltal ("Valley of Spoons"), where in old ages wooden spoons were made, joins the Zartenbach stream south of the road. To the north, the Ravenna gorge, with its numerous waterfalls, opens up under the Ravenna viaduct of the Höllental Railway. From the south the Bistenbach and Alpersbach streams tumble into it, becoming waterfalls. After the station of Hirschsprung and following the U-shaped valley with steep slopes up to 600 metres high (and its four-lane road) is a section with towering cliffs up to 130 metres high and known as the Höllenpass ("Hell Narrows"). The narrowest part of the gorge is called the Hirschsprung
("Deer's Jump") and was originally only 9 metres wide. Thus a common tale is existing about a red deer's jump across it. Behind the rocks with the ruins of Falkenstein Castle the valley broadens out somewhat and provides more space for the houses and farms of Falkensteig. At Himmelreich (English translation: "Heaven") hamlet and its railway station, the valley abruptly opens up into the Basin of Zarten.
The great importance of the Höllental today for long-distance traffic crossing the relatively low-lying Hinterzarten saddle (circa 910 m) was only achieved at significant cost. Initially the cart track through the Wagensteige ("Waggon Ascent") valley to the north was more important. But by the 12th century another track, the Falkensteige ("Hawk Ascent"), had been built by the dukes of Zähringen
from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen
, through what was then called the Falkenstein ("hawk stone") Valley (Falkensteiner Tal), the present-day Höllental. The track was guarded at the exit to the narrow pass by the Falkenstein Castle ("Hawk Stone Castle"), but was later threatened nevertheless. Not until the coach and the large bridle train of Marie Antoinette
, which was to bring her to her future husband, the subsequent Louis XVI of France
, had to traverse the route, was the track developed into a road. The Falkenstein Valley achieved fame again during the retreat of French troops under General Moreau
in 1796, and was referred to as the Val d'enfer ("Hell Valley"). As early as 1691 Emperor Leopold I
had described the present-day Hirschsprung as die Höll ("hell", formerly also "hollow"), when he reviewed the defence of routes through the Black Forest. Even the name of the Ravenna ravine had French or other Romanic origins; it is related la ravine. The term arose considerably earlier because it was already in use by 1560. During subsequent work on the route the gorge at Hirschsprung was successively blasted open. The level of traffic on the present-day B 31 has resulted in plans to replace the main road through Falkensteig, the gorge and the bends at Höllsteig by tunnels.
Since 1887 the Höllentalbahn
(Hell Valley Railway) has passed up the gorge, initially using a rack railway
system. The incline is 1:18 and it climbs a total of 441 m.
The walking trail along the bottom of the ravine, known as the Jägerpfad ("hunter's path"), once belonged to the Freiburg-Lake Constance Black Forest trail (Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee
), but this has been currently diverted over the northern side of the valley due to the weight of road traffic.
(Oberrheinische Tiefebene).
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
is a deep valley - in places like a gorge - in the state of Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The valley, which is about 9 kilometres long, is located in the southern part of the Southern Black Forest Nature Park about 18 km southeast of Freiburg im Breisgau between Hinterzarten
Hinterzarten
Hinterzarten is a resort village in the Black Forest , located in the southwest of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Although Hinterzarten is mostly famous for its ski jumpers, it also has many tourist attractions .- Hinterzarten :Hinterzarten was founded in 1148...
and Buchenbach
Buchenbach
Buchenbach is a municipality in the south west of the Black Forest. It is located in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is made up of four communities, the main town of Buchenbach and the villages of Falkensteig, Unteribental and Wagensteig...
-Himmelreich. The Rotbach stream (also called Höllenbach in the upper Höllental) runs through the valley. "Hölle" is the German word for "hell". In the narrow, dark valley, travellers almost felt like moving underground.
Formation
The Höllental is one of the valleys in the Black Forest that cuts through the asymmetric ridgeline of mountains from its plateau-like eastern uplands and runs down its steep western escarpment. The valley follows the line of the Bonndorf Rift Valley (Bonndorfer Graben), which runs from KaiserstuhlKaiserstuhl
The „Kaiserstuhl“ is a relatively low mountain range – a Mittelgebirge – with a maximal height of 556.6 m above sea level. It is of volcanic origin and located in the South West of Baden-Württemberg, Germany in the districts of Emmendingen and Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald...
via the Wutach
Wutach
Wutach can refer to*The Wutach, a river in Baden-Württemberg*The town of Wutach, one of the places the river flows through...
gorge and Hegau
Hegau
The Hegau is a formerly volcanic landscape in southern Germany extending around the industrial city of Singen , between Lake Constance in the east, the Rhine River in the south, the Danube River in the north and the Randen—as the southwestern mountains of the Swabian Alb are called—in the west.The...
to Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...
and is part of this tectonically-formed fault. Additionally it could have been created as a result of repeated glaciation of the Black Forest's uplands by ice lakes that could have spilled westwards over the eroded ridgeline. As a result the tributaries of the Höllenbach east of the ridgeline flow initially southeast, turning almost 180° towards the northeast into the Höllental itself, a situation similar to that of the Maloja pass
Maloja Pass
Maloja Pass is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden, linking the Engadin with the Val Bregaglia and Chiavenna in Italy...
in Engadin
Engadin
The Engadin or Engadine is a long valley in the Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream...
.
Course – "Hell" and "Heaven"
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
B 31 winds downhill, partly in spectacular loops, at the head of the former glacial valley. In this enclosed bowl with the hamlet of Höllsteig ("Hell Path"), the so-called Löffeltal ("Valley of Spoons"), where in old ages wooden spoons were made, joins the Zartenbach stream south of the road. To the north, the Ravenna gorge, with its numerous waterfalls, opens up under the Ravenna viaduct of the Höllental Railway. From the south the Bistenbach and Alpersbach streams tumble into it, becoming waterfalls. After the station of Hirschsprung and following the U-shaped valley with steep slopes up to 600 metres high (and its four-lane road) is a section with towering cliffs up to 130 metres high and known as the Höllenpass ("Hell Narrows"). The narrowest part of the gorge is called the Hirschsprung
Hirschsprung
Hirschsprung or Hirschprung may refer to:* Hirschsprung's disease, which involves an aganglionic section of bowel* Harald Hirschsprung , Danish physician* Pinhas Hirschprung , rabbi...
("Deer's Jump") and was originally only 9 metres wide. Thus a common tale is existing about a red deer's jump across it. Behind the rocks with the ruins of Falkenstein Castle the valley broadens out somewhat and provides more space for the houses and farms of Falkensteig. At Himmelreich (English translation: "Heaven") hamlet and its railway station, the valley abruptly opens up into the Basin of Zarten.
Importance for transportation
Zähringen
Zähringen is the name of an old German family that founded a large number of cities in what are today Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg. While the junior line that first assumed the title Duke of Zähringen, a cadet branch of the House of Baden, became extinct in 1218, the senior line persists and...
from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen
Donaueschingen
Donaueschingen is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar Kreis. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Danube ....
, through what was then called the Falkenstein ("hawk stone") Valley (Falkensteiner Tal), the present-day Höllental. The track was guarded at the exit to the narrow pass by the Falkenstein Castle ("Hawk Stone Castle"), but was later threatened nevertheless. Not until the coach and the large bridle train of Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
, which was to bring her to her future husband, the subsequent Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
, had to traverse the route, was the track developed into a road. The Falkenstein Valley achieved fame again during the retreat of French troops under General Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a French general who helped Napoleon Bonaparte to power, but later became a rival and was banished to the United States.- Early life :Moreau was born at Morlaix in Brittany...
in 1796, and was referred to as the Val d'enfer ("Hell Valley"). As early as 1691 Emperor Leopold I
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
| style="float:right;" | Leopold I was a Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia. A member of the Habsburg family, he was the second son of Emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria...
had described the present-day Hirschsprung as die Höll ("hell", formerly also "hollow"), when he reviewed the defence of routes through the Black Forest. Even the name of the Ravenna ravine had French or other Romanic origins; it is related la ravine. The term arose considerably earlier because it was already in use by 1560. During subsequent work on the route the gorge at Hirschsprung was successively blasted open. The level of traffic on the present-day B 31 has resulted in plans to replace the main road through Falkensteig, the gorge and the bends at Höllsteig by tunnels.
Since 1887 the Höllentalbahn
Höllentalbahn
Höllentalbahn is the name of a number of stretches of railway in German-speaking countries. They are differentiated by the name of the region in which they are located...
(Hell Valley Railway) has passed up the gorge, initially using a rack railway
Rack railway
A rack-and-pinion railway is a railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with this rack rail...
system. The incline is 1:18 and it climbs a total of 441 m.
The walking trail along the bottom of the ravine, known as the Jägerpfad ("hunter's path"), once belonged to the Freiburg-Lake Constance Black Forest trail (Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee
Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee
The Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee is a long-distance footpath that runs in an east–west direction in the Black Forest region of Baden-Württemberg, Germany....
), but this has been currently diverted over the northern side of the valley due to the weight of road traffic.
Hell Valley Wind
A regional wind, that constantly supplies the town centre of Freiburg with fresh air, is named after the Höllental, although in fact only part of the wind blowing through Freiburg comes from the Hell Valley. The foehn wind from the valley combines with streams of cold air from the other side valleys of the Zarten Basin and blows through the narrow pass at Ebnet accelerating at the exit of the basin into the Freiburg area of the Upper Rhine PlainUpper Rhine Plain
The Upper Rhine Plain, Rhine Rift Valley or Upper Rhine Graben is a major rift, straddling the border between France and Germany. It forms part of the European Cenozoic Rift System, which extends across central Europe...
(Oberrheinische Tiefebene).
Places of interest
- Hirschsprung gorge with a deer monument (Hirschsprung sagaHirschsprungHirschsprung or Hirschprung may refer to:* Hirschsprung's disease, which involves an aganglionic section of bowel* Harald Hirschsprung , Danish physician* Pinhas Hirschprung , rabbi...
) - St. Oswald Chapel in Steig with a late-gothic altar
- Ravenna gorge with its viaduct and waterfalls (height: 16 m und 4 m)
- Bisten waterfall (height: 50 m)
- Ruins of Falkenstein Castle
Sources
- Annika Lindenberg: Das kleine Buch vom Höllental. 3. Auflage, Maienstein, Kirchzarten 2001, ISBN 3932179633
- Werner Skrentny (Hrsg.): Regional- und Freizeitführer Schwarzwald. VSA, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-87975-517-5
- Ekkehard Liehl, Wolf Dieter Sick (Hrsg.): Der Schwarzwald. Beiträge zur Landeskunde. Veröffentlichung des Alemannischen Instituts Freiburg i. Br. Nr. 47 - 4. Auflage, Konkordia, Bühl 1989, ISBN 3-7826-0047-9
- Wolfgang Kleiber: Romania submersa. Neue Funde zum galloromanischen Substrat im Mittleren Schwarzwald. In: Albrecht Greule/Hans-Walter Herrmann/Klaus Ridder/Andreas Schorr (Hrsg.): Studien zu Literatur, Sprache und Geschichte in Europa. 2008