Run to Terrils - Chasing Iron Maiden in the Hoge Kempen National Park (Maasmechelen)

Take a walk with Iron Maiden's Run to the hills with this beautiful walk to the mine slag heaps in Maasmechelen ...

The walk runs through the grounds of the old coal mine of Eisden.

3 slag heaps are climbed, which makes the walk quite strenuous at certain times. However, the reward with the beautiful view of the surroundings is more than worth it. There are also some beautiful views along the way, including the twin terril and Terland beach where they try to create a tropical atmosphere. The passage between the cottages along the water of the Terhills resort also gives an instant holiday feeling ...

The route is marked in both directions by a purple trapezoid.

Start at the National Park Visitor Center where there is ample parking space and also accessible by public transport.

We walk between the play pit and shaft trestle 2 , which is next to the queen shaft . By the way, this trestle is freely climbable (height 24 meters)!

We turn left and pass the striking Ecotron, a unique, high-tech research installation in which researchers from UHasselt study the effects of climate change on biodiversity. We pass along the long slag heap that we will soon climb, but first we go around the large pond, created by gravel extraction. We arrive at a viewpoint that gives us a view of the twin sterile .

A little further on we pass the red slag heap on the left. This is the oldest terril and because it contains much more coal because the separation of usable coal and waste stone had not yet worked so well, there is much more coal in the terril here. Due to the process of spontaneous combustion , in which the temperature deep in the slag heap could rise to hundreds of degrees, there were water vapors that blew off the mountain in cold or wet weather due to the temperature difference. That is why it is sometimes called the 'Vesuvius van Eisden' . This slag heap is only exceptional and can only be visited under supervision.

We pass a ruin of a machine building and a little further on the climb to the twin slag heap starts, a height difference of about 50 meters. It takes a while to reach the second terril... We get a beautiful view of the domain and Park Hoge Kempen. Below we see the Elaisa Enrgetic Wellness on the creek zone.

After the descent, you pass the cottages that evoke a holiday feeling, something that is further enhanced by Terland beach.

We cross the road and start the climb to the Lange Terril. Here we come to the most famous view of Park Hoge Kempen. We descend and pass Terhills Cablepark in the small puddle. We return to the starting point along the Ecotron .