Grapefruitprincess ReLoaded: Hiking Germany: Teufelsschlucht

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Hiking Germany: Teufelsschlucht

I guess you can only cherish the nature around you, if you don't live in that area. This is how I feel about the landscapes in Germany. Since I'm living in AR/USA now, I see my old hometown, the surroundings, and especially the nature with different eyes. It is a beautiful place on this earth, and I am trying to squeeze in as many hikes as possible while I'm on vacation in Trier.

One day after I landed in Germany, 2 of my sisters, my little 9 year old nephew and I went on a hike. The "Teufelsschlucht" (= Devil's Gorge) is located between the villages Irrel and Ernzen in the southern Eifel.  It's a big and wonderful mixed forest with a huge amount of strage rock formations:


"The "Teufelsschlucht" is a gorge like cleft in the rock, which was enigmatic for the lcoals. A normal gorge is formed by the erosion of a river, as a result the floor is continually going downwards, as the water flows downhill. But this gorge is different, as the floor on both ends is higher than in the centre. So the water would have flown in from both sides and vanished mysteriously. So the locals beliefed this gorge was not formed naturally but created by the devil. So it was named devils gorge.
The sandstone in this area is called Luxemburger Sandstein and is from the Lower Jurassic or Lias. The calcreous sandstone was deposited some 190Ma ago at the northern coast of the Lias sea. The land mass to the north is called Ardennens Massif, and was the source of the sand. The area where those sandstones are found today is called Luxemburger Schweiz (Luxembourg Switzerland) and is about 330m asl. The sandstones are exceptionally thick in this area, because this once was the stuary of a river which brought huge amounts of sand with it an deposited them.
Below the sandstone is a layer of marl from the Upper Triassic, locally called Keuper. This rock is water resistant and rather soft, and becomes a good lubricant (at least in geologic terms) if wet. The sandstone has cracks from the uplift, they are widened by erosion, and the weck basement lets huges chunks of rock slide slowly. This process was intensified at the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 yeras ago, when warm an humid climate and the melting water of the glaciers caused higher erosion. The result was the labyrinth of strange rocks caled Felsenmeer (sea of rocks). The gorge was formed by the separation of two chucks of rock for more than one meter and several subsequent rock falls."
via www.showcaves.com
 
Did you know you can find me on YouTube now as well? I'm just getting started. But I would be happy if you follow me on there as well! I made a little video of the hike. It's not super duper professional, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway. I'm still learning all this YouTube stuff.





It was a wonderful and exhausting hike. Since it was going up- and downhill all the time, it was a nice workout as well:



If you want to hike over here, in the beautiful USA - check out this article about

  Top 50 Long Distance Hiking Trails In The USA!




footer
 


4 comments :

  1. Gorgeous! Pinning to my places to visit pinboard. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Germany! I would love to visit the area of your hike someday --preferably soon:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! Lovely photographs.. seems like a tough hike though ;) have fun!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment. I love reading them all and will try my best to answer all of your questions. If you would like to contact me for a quicker response please feel free to tweet me at (@grfrprincess), message me on Instagram (@anni_s) or email me. ~Anni

Hiking Germany: Teufelsschlucht

I guess you can only cherish the nature around you, if you don't live in that area. This is how I feel about the landscapes in Germany. Since I'm living in AR/USA now, I see my old hometown, the surroundings, and especially the nature with different eyes. It is a beautiful place on this earth, and I am trying to squeeze in as many hikes as possible while I'm on vacation in Trier.

One day after I landed in Germany, 2 of my sisters, my little 9 year old nephew and I went on a hike. The "Teufelsschlucht" (= Devil's Gorge) is located between the villages Irrel and Ernzen in the southern Eifel.  It's a big and wonderful mixed forest with a huge amount of strage rock formations:


"The "Teufelsschlucht" is a gorge like cleft in the rock, which was enigmatic for the lcoals. A normal gorge is formed by the erosion of a river, as a result the floor is continually going downwards, as the water flows downhill. But this gorge is different, as the floor on both ends is higher than in the centre. So the water would have flown in from both sides and vanished mysteriously. So the locals beliefed this gorge was not formed naturally but created by the devil. So it was named devils gorge.
The sandstone in this area is called Luxemburger Sandstein and is from the Lower Jurassic or Lias. The calcreous sandstone was deposited some 190Ma ago at the northern coast of the Lias sea. The land mass to the north is called Ardennens Massif, and was the source of the sand. The area where those sandstones are found today is called Luxemburger Schweiz (Luxembourg Switzerland) and is about 330m asl. The sandstones are exceptionally thick in this area, because this once was the stuary of a river which brought huge amounts of sand with it an deposited them.
Below the sandstone is a layer of marl from the Upper Triassic, locally called Keuper. This rock is water resistant and rather soft, and becomes a good lubricant (at least in geologic terms) if wet. The sandstone has cracks from the uplift, they are widened by erosion, and the weck basement lets huges chunks of rock slide slowly. This process was intensified at the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 yeras ago, when warm an humid climate and the melting water of the glaciers caused higher erosion. The result was the labyrinth of strange rocks caled Felsenmeer (sea of rocks). The gorge was formed by the separation of two chucks of rock for more than one meter and several subsequent rock falls."
via www.showcaves.com
 
Did you know you can find me on YouTube now as well? I'm just getting started. But I would be happy if you follow me on there as well! I made a little video of the hike. It's not super duper professional, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway. I'm still learning all this YouTube stuff.





It was a wonderful and exhausting hike. Since it was going up- and downhill all the time, it was a nice workout as well:



If you want to hike over here, in the beautiful USA - check out this article about

  Top 50 Long Distance Hiking Trails In The USA!




footer
 


4 comments :

  1. Gorgeous! Pinning to my places to visit pinboard. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Germany! I would love to visit the area of your hike someday --preferably soon:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! Lovely photographs.. seems like a tough hike though ;) have fun!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment. I love reading them all and will try my best to answer all of your questions. If you would like to contact me for a quicker response please feel free to tweet me at (@grfrprincess), message me on Instagram (@anni_s) or email me. ~Anni