Hiking and walking, yes, but not everywhere: This is how the compromise that the City of Königstein, HessenForst and the Darmstadt Regional Council have found for Burghain Falkenstein could be described.
In the future, not all previously known routes will be kept free there.
To do this, markings, benches and waste paper baskets are removed.
Some paths that should no longer be used are blocked by trees anyway, which now remain there.
"But some are freely accessible," said Gerd Bömig, head of the municipal specialist service for green planning and the environment, during an on-site visit.
Here, the administration and forestry rely on the signs directing visitors to their preferred routes.
Bernhard Biener
Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Hochtaunus district.
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The forest around the castle ruins in the Falkenstein district has been under nature protection since 1966.
Because it offers special conditions due to the rocks on which the trees have to take root.
"Thanks to the green slate, Burghain is one of the few well-supplied locations in the Taunus," said district forester Jochen Raus.
“There are many spring bloomers here like the larkspur.” At the same time, the trees have to get by with little soil, which is why their trunks tend to remain thin.
They are used to drought and have therefore survived the past years of drought comparatively well, as Hans-Jörg Sommer explained, who is responsible for nature conservation at the Königstein Forestry Office.
Significant damage from storms
"We had taken the area, which is also protected under the European Natura 2000 directive, out of use for a long time," said the head of the forestry office, Sebastian Gräf. The city of Königstein is also not interested in logging in Burghain, which it has wanted to get into its own hands for years. They therefore exchanged the area with the land for a piece of forest on the Altkönig. It was important to her to keep the slope in good condition. Because guests and spa patients have been walking along there since the 19th century. The Dettweiler Temple, which is reminiscent of a pulmonologist working in Falkenstein, and the Hildablick, where a temple once stood, still bear witness to this today. It was named after the daughter of the last Duke of Nassau, Adolph I.
However, two storms in 2017 and 2020 ensured that not everything could stay that way. They caused considerable damage, especially since the wind hit the trees from the unusual northeast direction last year. "Many citizens have asked, you are now the owner, why nothing happens for so long," said First City Councilor Jörg Pöschl (CDU). But you first had to coordinate with the Darmstadt regional council as the higher nature conservation authority. First of all, it was agreed to secure the outskirts along Falkensteiner Straße and to clear the forest several meters to the side.
"We would have liked to have cleared all paths again," said Pöschl. But the Burghain is both a local recreation area and a forest of the highest protection level. Finally, the regional council accepted a reduced route concept. Little-used paths were no longer used. "But that is not a cut in the freedom of movement," said the city council. With the path coming from Königstein, the Burgweg and the Buhlmannweg, the three main routes are still accessible. It has meanwhile cleared the fallen trees from HessenForst. The state company continues to take care of the Falkensteiner Burghain on behalf of the city, even if it now belongs to Königstein.