Genießerpfad Turmsteig

The (former?) premium trail Turmsteig starts in the main variant at the mountain station of the Hasenhornbahn above Todtnau and ends after almost 22km at the Hochopfhaus near Herrenschwand. But since the ascent from Todtnau, which is signposted as an access route, is one of the most beautiful parts of the trail, it is advisable to treat yourself to the few meters of altitude on foot. From the mountain station you can be at the top of the Hasenhorn Tower in 15 minutes - the many wispy clouds this morning created a great atmosphere. Continue in the direction of the Gisibodenalm, first over a beautiful path, then over a road and a few meters along the Gisibodenstrasse. Shortly after the pasture then the first guesswork - no more signs, according to the GPX it goes across the pastures... the bull who was signposted when leaving the pasture was fortunately busy elsewhere, but the following section of the route was unfortunately heavily plowed over by the timber industry 🙄 Suddenly there was another sign at the hairpin, so the track was obviously right... In the direction of Präger Boden, the route gets better again, but the mountain inn has definitely retired - a shame, it was always great to sit outside here🙁 The Präger glacier basin is an extensive nature reserve and geologically quite exciting: in the last ice age, several Black Forest glaciers met here, at times the ice sheet was over 500m thick...you can hardly imagine it even in winter 😅 OK, smartass mode off, after crossing the Prägbach, a fairly steep climb leads up to the Hofeckbund, thus to the border of the Bernauer Hochtal. From here you are on the east variant of the Westweg, I have already described the route to Blößling here: https://www.komoot.de/tour/573401185 - the ascent to the Blößling is still so annoying... In front of it, the view from up there (highest point of the whole tour) is great, the further way is also fine until the forest highways catch up with you again 😑 4.5 km before the end, a path branches off to the left, suddenly the rest of the route is the Black Forest at its best: wonderful path passages over a ridge with low tree cover (probably swept clear by Lothar at the time...), the rocky bench with a view of the Belchen and Blauen, then the rooty ascent to the high head tower... even the last kilometer from the high head tower down to the high head house keeps the quality, and one is disappointed that the tour is over. From the Hochkopfhaus, the RVL bus takes you to Todtnau in 20 minutes (note, the last trip at the weekend is at 4:39 p.m.) - the 15km walk back doesn't look very attractive. Conclusion: it seems that the re-certification as a premium trail has been dispensed with and the signage has therefore been neglected a little. It's actually a pity, because connecting the two observation towers is a nice idea. However, the condition of the path is in fact only really premium on the first and last 4-5 km, in between it is quite average.

Very strenuous but beautiful hike. From Todtnau up through the magical forest on narrow paths to the Hasenhorn mountain station. Up there, the beech forest was not green, but brown. The young leaves had all frozen. Hopefully they will sprout again. Then to the Hasenhorn tower with a great view. Continue on a beautiful path to the Gisiboden Alm restaurant with a short stop. From there to Präger Boden we lost the way for a moment. I would recommend that those who follow on walk from the Gisiboden Alm up to the Präger waterfall. Continue to the beautiful Hofeckhütte with a fantastic view and a snack break. Then we went down to the Roter Felsen, crossing the country road and then up a wide, never-ending path in the midday heat. Then we finally arrived at the Blößling with its summit cross - again fantastic views. Then we continued on a beautiful path to the Hochkopfturm. At first nobody wanted to go up the tower because we all had a few kilometers in our legs. But the tour is called Turmsteige - so we all went up after all. Then we continued to the Hochkopfhaus, where we had parked a car.

Today my hiking partner was Pia and we were both happy to walk the Genießerpfad - Turmsteige in this wonderful hiking weather. Arrival: You can leave your car in Todtnau at the bus station, free of charge, and take the bus from there to the Hochkopfhaus (change in Geschwend) or vice versa. Pure hiking time 23 km and 4.4 km/h, 2 km toboggan run to enjoy is added. Unfortunately, the official GPS map is not correct, or the map that is shown again and again on the hiking trail, the hiking trail is also marked differently on Komoot (from the Präger soils). this hiking trail that we followed on Komoot no longer exists and is no longer signposted. The route is planned the other way around, but at the end we wanted to take the toboggan run down to Todtnau. The hike itself is wonderful, the highlights of the tour are the views from the two observation towers on the Hasenhorn and Hochkopf, but the view from the treeless summit plateau of the Blößling will also reward you with a fantastic Black Forest panorama, this is where we also took our first break. The leather Tschobenstein is brilliantly illustrated, great idea. I can recommend both mountain inns on the tour, since there was a wedding in Gisiboden, we stopped at the Präger Boden inn, with Ann-Kathrin and Pete Turnbull, I knew them from the time at the Naturfreundehaus Gersbacher Hörnle, where they stayed for over 7 years. We now hiked past the Gisiboden mountain inn to the Hasenhorn tower, where a fantastic view of the Black Forest awaited us again. The last highlight was the ride down to Todtnau on the toboggan run, a grand finale. Here is the new route: https://www.komoot.de/tour/1220544798

The Turmsteig leads from the Hasenhorn mountain station to the Hochkopfhaus bus stop above Todtmoos. Since the chair lift is only in operation from 10 a.m., I added the ascent to the Hasenhorn (very good idea, great section). The highlights of the tour are the two eponymous towers and the Blössling. With today's perfect vision, really great! The paths are varied, from rather boring, wide farm roads to traily, narrow, cool hiking trails, everything was there.

Today we put a long planned tour into action and walked the Todtnauer Turmsteig. What can I say...I was pretty disappointed with this round. But one after anonther. We started at the valley station of the Hasenhornbahn via the beautiful magic path up to the Hasenhorn and the Hasenhorn tower. From there on to the Gisiboden Alm, where we first treated ourselves to coffee and cake. A very nice mountain inn by the way. From there it went over some beautiful passages up to the viewpoint Roter Felsen. And from here it got really ugly 😕 Kilometers long on wide gravel paths, first down into the valley and then uphill in the same direction towards Blößling. Shortly before the summit there are finally beautiful rooty paths again, which mostly stayed the same. A short detour to the Hochkopf and its tower before starting the descent again. The aim of this tour is at the Hochkopfhaus restaurant, from where we took the bus back to the starting point.

Before the expected rainy Saturday, which we wanted to use as a day off, it could be another ambitious tour today, Friday. In search of such a trail, the "Turmsteige gourmet trail" (not a circular route!) between Todtnau and Todtmoos revealed itself to us, which in the official version is almost 20 kilometers long and has an altitude difference of 950 meters. While the official variant starts at the mountain station of the Hasenhornbahn, we decided not to use the chairlift and moved the starting point to the Todtnau bus station, so that we had a few additional kilometers and vertical meters ahead of us. We had parked at the hiking car park near the stage destination at the Hochkopfhaus in Todtnau-Herrenschwand. From here, the 7321 bus took us at 8:23 a.m. in 27 minutes to the Todtnau bus station terminus. After just under 400 meters we reached the first signpost, which should also be the last one to the mountain station. From here it was almost 3.2 kilometers long, on great forest and meadow paths, very steeply uphill. It was almost exactly 500 meters to climb to the first of the two towers of the "Genießerpfad Turmsteige", the Hasenhornturm. Passing the mountain station of the Hasenhornbahn, we finally reached the Hasenhornturm, which offered beautiful views in all directions. At the foot of the tower we used a picnic bench for our first break. After the break, the trails remained varied and attractive, offered vantage points, and we only met a handful of other hikers. We took further breaks at the Bernauer Kreuz, at the summit of the Blößling and at the Felsenbänkli. At the latter two there was a magnificent panorama to admire. We were a bit surprised that at the end of the tour the official route didn't point to the Hochkopfturm at all, but directly down towards the hikers' car park. We then tackled the short ascent to the Hochkopfturm and only then headed for the destination of the tour. A very beautiful, mostly lonely, at times very sporty, always varied and entertaining tour, which gave us another beautiful day of hiking in the Black Forest.

That was the performance limit today, a lot of meters in altitude and very hot, .... with a 44-year-old and a 27-year-old

After a nice evening on Gisiboden, on the 6th day it's again over 1300, the Bößling. Again lucky with the weather and prospects for the heights of the last few days. Next time never again in the Hochkopfhaus (Waldhotel Auerhahn), but on to Herrenschwand or descent to the Rössle (Todtmoos)!