FrankenwaldSteigla Steinbacher Lebenslinien

Breathe wide - Deep forests, bright clearings, plateaus with surprising views: Hiking in the Franconian Forest opens up unexpected horizons for the eyes and soul! In front of the grandeur of nature, our everyday fears and worries become small and insignificant. We breathe in vastness and find ourselves.

On our "Steinbacher Lebenslinien" circular trail, you will experience two very different forms of vastness: vast forests and almost treeless plateaus that open up views into the distance. The importance of the forest for life in the Rennsteig region should not be underestimated! Most people are well aware that money was made by rafting logs to regions with little timber. But did you know that spruce resin was used to make pitch, printing ink, varnish, glue, celluloid and linoleum? Or that tanners used extracts of spruce bark to preserve leather? On the Forest Experience Trail, you have the chance to learn all this: it accompanies you on part of the trail and gives you an entertaining insight into the various sources of life on the Rennsteig. There is also a nature trail along the way, very close to the idyllic recreational lake fed by the Ölschnitz. Leaving the vastness of the forest, we enjoy a panoramic view of the surrounding area from the Windheimer Höhe. A fresh breeze blows around our noses.

Way description

We walk south towards the Evangelical Church of Christ and continue towards the cemetery and the Catholic Church of St. Heinrich. We first reach the village center of Steinbach a. Wald with the fortified church of St. Johannes Baptista from the 15th century on the cycle and footpath next to the B85 and Flustraße. In Windheimer Straße, we walk between houses uphill to the right, where we come to the Heeresstraße. We walk to the left to the nearby seating area of the Ölschnitztal hiking association on the Napoleonsbusch with a beautiful view.

Shortly afterwards, we turn right and walk downhill on a meadow and forest path and arrive in Windheim. From the center of the village, we leave Windheim on the Napoleonsrunde (R81) in Hasengasse, heading out of town. This section of the trail roughly coincides with the Glasmacher-Steig, the path that glassmakers once took to their workplaces in Kleintettau and Tettau. We walk briefly through the meadows, then uphill in the forest until we leave the R81 to the right just before Kehlbach at the edge of the forest. After a short stretch, we rejoin the R81, which runs along the "Bahnhofs-Steig". This is what locals still call the path on which they used to walk to the train station in Steinbach a. Wald. We walk through a hollow, on the other side we come to the R82 (Ölschnitzweg). We turn left briefly and then immediately right again towards Ölschnitzsee. After the water treading pool, we walk briefly to the left and then immediately right again up a short incline to the nature trail of the Ölschnitz Valley Hiking Association. We walk to the right as far as the district road, then turn left to the Rennsteig and cross the road. On the other side, the trail descends slightly to the alternative Rennsteig trail with the forest nature trail. We follow it to the right until we reach the Heeresstraße. Here we walk approx. 100m to the right until we reach the "Drei Brüder Kreuz", where three members of a Protestant family are said to have been caught on the run in 1634 by the "vengeful Kronachers" pursuing them and miserably "cut and stabbed to death". Opposite the cross, we walk about 1km on a pleasant forest path to the source of the Haßlach. Now we are back on the alternative Rennsteig trail with forest nature trail. We follow it to the right until we reach the obelisk at the watershed.