Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 6 St Blasien to Todtmoos

The view from our hotel window

Open fields and forests

The "monster" at work

The Fairy Glen

Another wonderfully sunny morning, though some of the "spectacle viewers" of the night before, a little short of sleep, had a somewhat jaundiced view of the world. We walked through the town and could stock up on a sandwich for lunch, before diving under the bypass to climb steeply over Lehenkopf with the Bismarck Tower. There were already excellent views of the cathedral and the cloister buildings, so we did not climb the tower, but made our excuses and left. We walked down into the pub at Klosterweiher where we enjoyed a Radler before climbing 2km to the Kreuzfelsenhutte shelter hut to eat our sandwiches. We could have had lunch in the pub, but a beer  and a large lunch slows us up even more in the afternoon. We continued on through forests and around fields containing a bull, a number of cows and calves to climb to the Peace Cross above Ibach where we were promised a view of the Alps. It is more than likely true on a cold clear day, but with the haze it was difficult to recognise anything, though J and C swore they could see snowy peaks through binoculars. We crossed open country and climbed into forest where we were treated to a display of modern forestry techniques. A monstrous machine was reducing large trees to matchsticks. After another a stretch of forest we crossed the main road to walk steeply into the Hohwehraschlucht  (Upper Wehra Gorge). The last part of the route before Todtmoos was an interesting path through a “fairy glen”, a babbling brook, pools and light and shad from a variety of trees.