Geopad 102-Heide from the Stulp near Lage Vuursche

If you want to explore the characteristics and qualities of De Stulp and the surrounding area on foot, we recommend taking the six-kilometer hiking route described here.

The route starts and ends in the village of Lage Vuursche.

1. From the ancient Dorpsstraat in Lage Vuursche, the route first turns right onto Hooge Vuurscheweg. You pass in succession a parsonage barn from the 19th century, a former customs house from 1906, a church from the 17th century, the associated cemetery, and a reconstructed ancient farmhouse from 1942, on whose grounds a large bakehouse from the 18th century has been preserved.

2. Where the Hooge Vuurscheweg turns left over an agricultural enclave, go immediately right and straight into the forest. A few hundred meters further, a rampart-like earthwork appears as a terraced depression surrounded by a wall structure, with some winding ditches leading down. Behind the earthwork, the geological path turns right at a T-junction. You then find yourself
on a mostly straight forest path. This will soon lead you to an X-shaped intersection, where you will turn sharply left. A winding path then leads you to the wide Stulpse Laan, which you will cross. The white-marked Stulpweg from Staatsbosbeheer will then serve as your guide for a long time.

3. The hiking trail runs along an old part of the forest to a relief-rich belt of sandy soils, where wind deposits from the last ice age were particularly subject to local drifting during and shortly after the Middle Ages. This was especially the case where the dry, elevated parts of these deposits were repeatedly plowed and often walked or driven over after deforestation in prehistoric and early historic times. Particularly when paths began to drift, oval, trench-like, and (branching) valley-like drifting layers formed. These were emphasized by deposits of sand that accumulated around the depressions due to vegetation.

The marked route first passes a rather noticeable trench-like depression. Afterwards, you can look out over an area from a hill where Staatsbosbeheer gives the heather more opportunities again. A group of distinctive plateaus draws your attention there. The creatively stimulating relief features of the heathland can be visually enjoyed relaxing on a bench. This possibly fascinating, remarkable geomorphological phenomenon could have occurred when the drifting sand was evenly distributed over the environment of the drifting depressions.

4. Passing the place where the captivating panorama presents itself, the marked hiking route follows a gently curved drifting valley marked by Kliffsen. Here it goes directly through the heathland on the right. On the other side of the heath, you will find a T-junction where it is suggested to inspect the strongly delineated contours of a drifting cliff along the edge of the forest to the right. A few hundred meters further, the route then disappears back into the forest.

5. There, after a while, you will pass a deep ditch that marks and cuts through a less distinctly divided old part of the forest. On the right side of the route is a prominent depression of unknown origin. A few hundred meters behind the depression, the wide Stulpse Laan crosses again for the second time.

6. On the other side of the Laan, the red marking of the Kasteeltuin path will guide you. This path first leads to the mostly straight forest road you became acquainted with shortly after the start of the hike. This road leads left to a cleared and plowed zone, where the living nature of Pluismeer and the formerly agriculturally used, moist Nonnenveld will presumably seek each other out.

7. Just before the significantly lower-lying Nonnenveld, the red route turns almost 180 degrees to the right. It then leads to an old part of the forest with a bordered pond. Passing this earthwork created with recreational thoughts, you leave the red route by turning left. Shortly thereafter, you see the gate that surrounds the grounds of Castle Drakensteyn. Just before the gate, the geological path turns right at a T-junction. On the other side of the gate, you now see a hill with a former ice cellar. Shortly thereafter, you pass a place with no less than six burial mounds. Three of them are located on the left behind the fence; the others are on your right in the state forest. The burial mounds were investigated by Van Giffen in 1927. In one of the burial mounds, a previously unknown type of urn was found. Other examples of this type have since been called Drakensteyn urns.

8. After passing the burial mounds, you are back at the place where the hike through the forest began. To the left, it is about 500 meters to the Dorpsstraat of Lage Vuursche.

Through the hike, you have been informed about the geomorphological condition and structure of a forest area that lies both on a low moraine and on wind formations. In doing so, the valleys, the valley-like depressions, and the plateau-marked cliff of the slightly drifted wind deposits, the burial mounds, a rampart-like earthwork, two deep ponds marked by hills, some monumental tree trunks of the forest, and the views over the heathland surrounded by forest and Pluismeer undoubtedly made the most significant impression.