Black Forest National Park

"A trace wilder" is the motto of the Black Forest National Park, and it is hard to put it better. Founded in 2014, it is the first protected area of its kind in Baden-Württemberg. Since the beginning of 2026, its formerly separate parts have formed one continuous area of a good 11,000 hectares along the main ridge of the northern Black Forest.

For guests in Baiersbronn, that is more than a footnote. The park begins practically at the village sign. From Obertal, the National Park Centre at Ruhestein is some fifteen minutes away, and with it a landscape in which people deliberately step back.

The principle behind the national park is as simple as it is radical. Let nature be nature. In the core zones nothing is tidied up, nothing planted, nothing harvested. Fallen trunks stay where they lie and become a nursery for beetles and woodpeckers. Bogs and cirque lakes develop as water and time dictate.

What that looks like in the long run can be seen in the forest reserve at the Wilder See. It was taken out of use as early as 1911 and has been left to itself for more than a century, a primeval forest of tomorrow in the middle of Central Europe. With a little luck and patience you may spot capercaillie and three-toed woodpeckers in the park, and, more and more often, the tracks of larger species making their return.

The best introduction is the National Park Centre at Ruhestein, at around 900 metres above sea level, a striking timber building whose stacked, interlocking wings recall tree trunks piled on top of one another. Inside, an interactive permanent exhibition with its own cinema tells the story of how wilderness comes about. Entry to the building is free. Only the exhibition charges admission.

The most spectacular part is the Skywalk, an open walkway from the building to a viewing tower 35 metres high and tilted at 15 degrees. From the top, the park lies at your feet, and you understand at a glance why these forests deserve protection.

If you want to get to know the park on foot, there are three classic ways in. The Lotharpfad, around 900 metres long, is the shortest. Over boardwalks, ladders and viewing platforms it crosses an area that the storm Lothar flattened in 1999. And it shows the force with which the new forest grows up through the old wood.

The Wildnispfad runs for 3.5 kilometres through wild forest full of upturned root plates and trunks lying across the path, so now and then you climb over an obstacle. The Luchspfad, around five kilometres long, is devoted to the Black Forest's secretive returnee. Stations along the way explain how the lynx lives and why these forests suit it once again.

The deepest way in is to join a ranger-led tour. The park's annual programme runs to hundreds of tours and excursions led by rangers and wilderness educators, most of them free of charge. There are themes for every age, from a family afternoon to a demanding hike across rough terrain.

So that the wilderness stays wild, a few simple rules apply. Stay on the paths in the core zones, keep dogs on a lead and take nothing away but photographs. The reward is an experience of nature with few equals in Germany's densely populated south-west, a quarter of an hour from the breakfast table at Engel Obertal.