Nature park trail Schwalenberger Wald - South route

"NatureTimeTravel" - Stories about the Schwalenberger Forest
Is there anything more beautiful than hiking through the forest on a sunny day? Simply being on the move under your own power, breathing in the fresh air under the green canopy of leaves, enjoying the play of sunlight between the treetops, and experiencing the diversity of the forest with all your senses?
For many people, the forest is still the epitome of nature and primordiality. Over generations, Germans in particular have developed a "legendary" relationship with the forest. The Romantics idealized it poetically and artistically as a place of yearning. The Brothers Grimm elevated the forest in their fairy tales to a seat of a fantastic world with fairies, witches, and dwarfs. Apart from this world of fantasy, the forest also has its own history. And it is this history that the Teutoburg Forest / Eggegebirge Nature Park aims to tell through its NatureTimeTravel in the Schwalenberger Forest.
The Schwalenberger Forest is located on a mountain massif rising up to 446 m. With its approximately 27 km², it is one of the significant forested areas in Lippe. Its more than 70 percent deciduous forest makes it a protected area of European importance. On the mountain ridge lies a former moor, the "Mörth," whose once boggy area is clearly delineated by the reforestation with spruces. Endangered animal and plant species find their home in the dominant beech forest community.
The Schwalenberger Forest has a very eventful history, which the new nature park trail traces at selected experience locations. It quickly becomes clear that over the centuries, people have repeatedly used and altered the forest according to their needs. They drove cows, goats, and pigs into the forest for grazing and took leaves from it as bedding for the animals in the stables during the winter. The forest was their only source of energy, as well as a producer of raw materials for everyday necessities and a supplier of timber for the roof over their heads. In the Early Modern Age and at the beginning of industrialization, people consumed the forest faster than ever before. Large-scale logging allowed forest owners to make quick money. In addition, the glassworks literally devoured the wood of the Schwalenberger Forest due to their high energy demand. Exploitation of the forest was commonplace, leading to a massive wood shortage. What remained was a devastated, barren landscape.
But the worst was averted. Today, we find an intact forest landscape in the same area - only names remind us of that bygone era, such as the Kahlenberg, whose reforestation led to the overgrowth of Lippe's most beautiful historical observation tower.
"Sustainability" is the keyword for modern forestry. Its maxim is: "Do not remove more timber from the forest than is simultaneously regrowing." The Lippe Regional Association, as the owner of the Schwalenberger Forest, fully commits to this principle.
In the Schwalenberger Forest, "witnesses of time" and "time windows" set up by the nature park along the hiking trail provide information on many of these forest stories and direct the hiker's gaze specifically to the still recognizable historical relics.
Also, habitat-preserving measures such as the creation and reactivation of species protection waters, the bundling planting of a lime tree, and supplemental plantings in an orchard were on the agenda when setting up the nature park trail. Naturally, during the hike, natural history information is also provided, including the importance of dead wood in the forest or the uniqueness of the Mörth as the highest spawning ground for crested newts in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The history of the Schwalenberger Forest can be explored on two loops of approximately 18 km each. The views from the edge of the forest into the landscape on both sides of the mountain ridge are something for connoisseurs. The nature park has also created resting places for hikers and set up landscape loungers at two particularly inviting locations for well-being in nature.
For generations, the forest has always been an ambivalent point of reference for people. The old myths of the forest may no longer play a significant role in the minds of modern people today, but exciting "forest stories" are still being told. The "Schwalenberger Forest Nature Park Trail" in the Teutoburg Forest / Eggegebirge Nature Park is an example of this.