Familienrunde Bärenthaler Wasserfall

A small but beautiful hiking tour, especially for families

Bärenthal may be the smallest municipality in the district of Tuttlingen with just under 500 inhabitants, but it has a lot to offer in terms of landscape, geology and culture. The district of Gnadenweiler is well-known for its chapel and the Kapellenblick café, as well as the beautiful nature trails between Schwenningen and Irndorf.

No less attractive destinations can be discovered in the valley. For example, a varied circular trail for families leads from the hiking parking lot at the end of the village to typical features of the karst mountains of the Swabian Alb.

Under the motto "Water and limestone", a small waterfall (especially after regular falls), a spring, a small cave and a unique tuff quarry are lined up to the right of the river Bära.

Several striking buildings in the region are made of tuff, including the Bärenthal vicarage, several railroad stations along the Danube Valley Railway and the Spaichingen town church. This building material, which looks so different from "ordinary" limestone, mostly came from the large tuff quarry near Bärenthal. Tufa quarrying played an important economic role here. In the 1930s, the Bärenthal construction company Beck employed more than 30 workers who quarried and prepared tuff.

Calcareous tuff, not to be confused with volcanic tuff, forms under certain climatic and geological conditions on the edge of karst areas such as the Swabian Alb. It is formed in similar processes to stalactites in caves. In its soft, mountain-moist state, the rock can be easily sawn off and cut to size. It then hardens, making it a high-quality building material that is weatherproof, abrasion-resistant and insulating.