Stockhöhen-Weg OS 25

Starting from the hiking board in Haidengrün, our circular hiking trail leads around the Stock-Höhe.

We walk past the pond, then turn left and walk in the open, keeping left at the fork, to the paper mill idyllically situated in the Thronbach valley. On the way, we have a beautiful view back to Haidengrün and Haueisen.

Paper has long since ceased to be produced in the single building used as a weekend cottage. It is said that church records in Döbra were written on paper from this mill. It was built around 1700 by a Hans Müller as a grain mill. From around 1725 it was a paper mill and produced paper until around 1850. After a fire, the indebted property was auctioned off and operated by the new owner as a mill with a beer pub. It was a popular excursion destination until 1963. In 1970, it was sold to private owners.

We walk across the protected valley and then uphill on forest paths in the woods to the "Alte hohe Straß", a path that in times gone by was reserved for high nobility only. We turn left and follow this ridge path on natural paths through the forest for a long time. At the edge of the forest, we are surprised by a fantastic view from Marlesreuth (left) over Rodesgrün, Neuhaus, the outskirts of Selbitz. Dörnthal, Rothenbürg, Windischengrün and Schauenstein in the foreground, all the way to the heights of the Fichtelgebirge. With these beautiful views, we walk downhill to the water reservoir. There we follow the road briefly downhill towards Windischengrün, turn left shortly before the village onto a field path and walk through the fields down into the forest. Keeping to the right, we follow a forest path until we reach an idyllic meadow with a pond down to the left. Here, the hiking trail leads us briefly uphill to the right and then to the left for a long time through a continuous forest area until shortly before Uschertsgrün.

With a view of Uschertsgrün, we turn sharp left and come close to the unspoilt valley landscape (nature reserve) of the Thronbach stream, which rises just below Thron and flows into the Selbitz after a short course. With beautiful views of the valley, we hike gently uphill in the forest more or less close to the Thronbach valley, crossing a side valley at the "Greimeslachn", a pond, over to the black woodpecker pine, a barkless tree stump. This once mighty pine tree provided shelter in its trunk for black woodpeckers, as well as other woodpeckers, starlings, martens, great horned owls and other native wildlife. The tree and pond are surrounded by legends in which the devil is at the center of the action.

For a long time, this section of the path was the route taken by the people of Haidengrün and Haueisen to their places of work and to the railroad station in Schauenstein. We follow this Haidengrüner Weg straight ahead near the edge of the forest and further into the forest, past a conspicuous number of spruce trunks with traces of old lightning strikes. Perhaps it was the same here, as Bruno Hager tells us in the 2008 local history calendar on page 61 about Pastor Johann Samuel Völkel, who held the second pastorate in Schwarzenbach a. d. Saale together with Jean Paul's father. People at that time did not accept firewood if they knew that the tree had been struck by lightning. Because, it was believed, as soon as the wood was placed in the burning stove, the lightning would strike again.

At the "Haueisner Brückla", an old stone slab bridge, we cross the Thronbach stream and the valley after the end of the forest and enjoy the beautiful view of the beautifully landscaped valley landscape, Haidengrün and Haueisen. After the bridge, we turn right across a meadow, past the pond on the left to the fisherman's hut at the edge of the forest and walk slightly uphill past the beehive in the forest. Immediately after the bee house, we should leave our hiking trail 30 meters to the right. To the right of the path, funnel-shaped depressions are reminiscent of iron ore mining (pig iron!). We follow our circular route uphill for a while until we come to the historic Webersteig trail. We take it downhill to the left, cross a small ground, walk straight ahead across the field (if necessary, we bypass the plowed field) and then on a path in a straight main direction into the "paradise" - as Haueisen is popularly known.

The name of the Schauenstein district is a reminder of the former iron mining industry. According to Otto Knopf, it was then inhabited by estate workers and hand weavers. We walk directly alongside the houses, through a farm and past the Haidengrün OG hiking home on a meadow path and along a natural field path with beautiful views back to the starting point in the agricultural village of Haidengrün. The village, which is surrounded by forest, is also located on the Webersteig trail and in the source basin of a small tributary of the Thronbach stream.