At the Siebertal: fir needles falling softly on the ground

Christina/ August 2, 2020/ The daily grind

It is Christmas again? Fir needles falling softly on the ground in the Upper Harz. I already knew that the tree-population at the Western Harz is endangered. But I did not realize how bad it really is. What is going on? Are we going to lose our forests? On the way fortunately we do not only meet death. Puppets, birds and butterflies make for funny and nice moments. We also come across a criminal case from the fifties which makes this trip exciting.

Death smells resinously
We start our hiking trip on a parking lot at Sonnenberg,close to the ski region. It is 10 o’clock and quite warm already. We are looking forward to the shadowy forest. We walk upon the hiking loop “Dreibodesteine”. The landscape around us is really nice. It reminds me on a mountain pasture meadow. It is flourishing around us. We are at the Siebertal and are accompanied by the cheerfully rolling river of the same name.

But where have all the trees gone? It is heavily clicking beneath our shoe soles. We are walking on fir needles. “Can you smell the resin?” Heinz asks us. “That’s death”. We look around us and well, deadwood everywhere. I have never seen the needles falling so heavily as today before. It feels it is snowing. But it is not snow it is needles. Is the forest dying? The imagination alone provokes shock waves.

The fate of police officer Hermann Stein
We are engrossed in discussion about cooking pots and unpaid leather jackets as we come across the fate of police officer Hermann Stein. A memorial stone and an information board errected by the home team of Lerbach honors Stein. In the fifties the police officer became a victim of poachers.

Just a couple of minutes later coziness of the trail is over: from now on we walk steeply uphill. It is about noon and the heat takes its toll on us. We are sweating heavily, our legs get tired. Shortly before we reach our milestone we meet two ladies with dogs. One of them is a puppy with clumsy paws. It is fun to watch it and our spirits thus return after climbing up that hill. We finally reach the Dreibodesteine. We are lucky that the shadowing rest area is not occupied yet. We take our time for a snack and relax. Once again we watch the fir needles falling.

At the butterfly open air museum
Alongside the Rehberger Graben we make some nice discoveries. At first we see a young bird sitting a the roadside. It seems to be helpless and apathetic. We are worried about the feathered friend and wonder whether it’s mother is close by. Firstly the bird is motionless, then it jumps into the bushes. Hopefully everything turns out fine for it, we keep our fingers crossed.

Later on we meet a very beautiful orange-coloured butterfly and about two kilometres further down we come across a butterfly open-air museum. At least three different kinds of butterflies are bustling here. We identify a peacock butterfly and a red admiral. It is good to see some intact countryside.

After a five-hours walking distance we reach our starting point,the Sonnenberg.

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