The Lahnwanderweg (Stage 3)

Jerry Griffis

5 days ago

3 min read

On October 17, 2021 we hiked Stage 3 of the Lahnwanderweg, from Bad Laasphe to Biedenkopf. The Lahnwanderweg follows the river from its source to the Rhine, and we had decided to walk all of it. This stage is 17.6 km (about 11 miles) with roughly 530 meters (1,740 feet) of climbing, and the official site rates it a "top recommended route." Here is the AllTrails link for Stage 3. The official Lahnwanderweg site also has the Stage 3 page.

I will be honest: the early stages of the Lahnwanderweg are the quiet, gentle ones, and the trail gets more dramatic as you go. It took some convincing to get the whole family to keep going with the stages. The people who built and maintain this trail clearly put a lot of work and pride into it, and it shows, down to the little details along the way.

Bad Laasphe and the Wittgenstein Name

We started in Bad Laasphe. Bad just means "spa," so this is a spa town, and the Kurpark (spa park) has a war memorial on the site of a medieval watch post. Bad Laasphe was the center of the southern part of the old county of Sayn-Wittgenstein. The county began in 1345, when Count Salentin of Sayn married the heiress Adelheid of Wittgenstein, and it stayed with the family until 1808. Schloss Wittgenstein (Schloss means castle or palace) still stands above the town.

There is a famous connection here. In 1808 a decree required everyone, Jews included, to take a fixed family surname. Moses Meier, a land agent who lived in Bad Laasphe, had a son who took the name of his employers, the Sayn-Wittgensteins, and became Moses Meier Wittgenstein. That is the family that later produced the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The hills and rooftops of Bad Laasphe seen from the trail

Out of Town

The trail climbs out of town through pastures and woods. Horses were grazing in the meadows above the valley.

The family hiking along a grass path with horses grazing in the meadow

A grass path along a pasture with horses and hills in the distance

A small mushroom on a mossy tree stump beside the trail

A gravel forest road lined with autumn trees

Into Hessen

Partway through the stage the trail leaves North Rhine-Westphalia and enters Hessen (Hesse), going over the Entenberg (Ente is "duck," so "Duck Mountain") and the Gebrannter Kopf ("Burnt Head"). The Entenberg, at 535 meters, is the real summit challenge of the stage and the reward is a sweeping view over the Lahn valley. The area on the Hessian side is called the Hinterland, which here means the back country. It was split off in the 1568 partition of the Landgraviate of Hesse, ceded to Prussia in 1866, and became part of the State of Hessen after World War II. Biedenkopf, where this stage ends in the old town, was its district town.

One of the boys standing in an autumn forest beside an old stone marker

The view from the Entenberg over the valley, with wind turbines on the far ridge

The Stempelstelle

One of the best parts of the Lahnwanderweg is the Stempelstelle (stamp station). Stempel is "stamp," and along the trail there are boxes with stamps hikers use to mark a passbook as proof that they walked the stage. Stage 3 has one at the summit of the Entenberg, where there is also a Gipfelbuch (Gipfel is "summit," Buch is "book"), a summit register you can sign. We missed a few of these on the trail, so you have to keep your eyes peeled. They are not big, and it is easy to walk right past one. This is the one we found, and the view from here is worth the stop.

One of the boys beside the red Stempelstelle stamp box at the top of the Entenberg, with the valley below

The Rest of the Day

Near Breidenstein we passed the Perfstausee (Perf Reservoir; Stausee means a dammed lake). It holds back the Perf, a tributary of the Lahn, and was created in 1993. The concrete structure on the left side of the photo is the dam and overflow.