Ellerspring (657 m) and the Wildburg Heights (629 m)
If you take the road from
Bad Sobernheim
to
Gemünden,
you cut straight across the Soonwald foothills before reaching the Zollstock
heights and as you approach the hamlet of Daubach the forest opens up
and your view falls on the main Soonwald range in the distance. On the
highest point a television tower has been placed. This point, which is also
the highest point of the entire Soonwald range, is called Ellerspring.
In order to visit this place
you have to drive past Daubach, Winterburg, Winterbach
and Kreershäuschen to the "Rennweg" with a parking lot for hikers.
Rennweg (the name can probably be deduced from "Rhine Route") is one of the
most ancient long-distance roads of prehistoric times. It runs along the
Hunsrück Heights and today is a part of the European long-distance
hiking trail Nr. 3, which leads from the Atlantic to the Black Sea.
Entenpfuhl is the name of the surrounding forest district which
encompasses almost boundless and wholly untouched emerging forests where
the legendary
Hunter of Kurpfalz
once roamed.
Photo: On the Wildburg Heights (629 m), on a quartzite cliff, are the remains
of the keep of the imperial fortress Wildburg. When there is snow and the winter
winds blow strongly on the Soonwald ridge, you can get an inkling of the loneliness
and pitiless cold to which the people of the Middle Ages were exposed here in winter.