Black Forest National Park

Stand still for a moment and listen. The wind moves through the tops of the spruce trees with a long, low rush, like distant surf. Underfoot, the path is soft with needles and damp moss. The air smells of resin, wet stone and something earthy that rises from the forest floor. Up here on the high ridges above Baiersbronn, the light comes through the branches in thin, cool shafts. Welcome to Black Forest National Park.

This is a young park in an old landscape. It opened on the first day of January 2014, and it was the first national park in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It covers roughly ten thousand hectares, spread across two separate sections along the northern Black Forest ridge. The larger southern section lies around Ruhestein and the Schliffkopf. A smaller northern section sits around the Hoher Ochsenkopf. Between them runs the Black Forest High Road, a scenic route along the ridgeline.

What makes a national park different from an ordinary forest? Here is the idea, and it is a bold one. Over the coming decades, most of this land will simply be left alone. No logging, no clearing, no tidying. The plan is for about three quarters of the park to become a core zone where nature follows its own course. In a region shaped for centuries by forestry, that is a quiet revolution. The motto you may see on signs here translates roughly as "Let nature be nature."

To understand why that matters, think about what the Black Forest used to be. For hundreds of years, these hills supplied timber. Logs were floated down the rivers, tied into great rafts and sent as far as the Netherlands, where they were used in shipbuilding and in the foundations of cities. Much of the forest you see today was replanted, often with fast-growing spruce. So the dark, even ranks of trees around you carry the mark of human hands.

Now look for the open spaces on the ridgetops. These treeless heaths, covered with heather, grasses and low shrubs, are called Grinden. They look wild, but they are not natural. Farmers once drove cattle and other animals up here to graze, and over generations the grazing kept the trees away. Today, park staff keep some of these heaths open on purpose, sometimes with grazing animals. They are one of the few places in the park where people step in rather than step back.

Here is something many visitors miss. The ground beneath your feet is mostly red sandstone, laid down long before the dinosaurs. This stone weathers into thin, acidic soil that holds little nutrition. Combine that with heavy rain and snow, and you get boggy patches, peat and slow-growing plants. Watch for small moors on the high ground, with cotton grass and sphagnum moss. Step carefully, because these wet places are fragile and recover very slowly.

Near Ruhestein lies the Wildsee, a small, dark lake in a bowl-shaped hollow. Glaciers carved this hollow during the last Ice Age. The forest around the lake has been protected for far longer than the national park itself. It was set aside as a strict reserve in the early twentieth century, so the trees there have grown, fallen and rotted with very little interference for more than a hundred years. It gives a glimpse of what the rest of the park may one day become.

The second surprise comes from a storm. On the day after Christmas in 1999, a hurricane-force windstorm named Lothar swept across central Europe. In the northern Black Forest, it flattened huge areas of trees in a matter of hours. Near the Schliffkopf, one damaged area was deliberately left as it was. A trail called the Lotharpfad now leads through it. You climb over and under fallen trunks, and you can see how quickly young trees have filled the gaps.

That story connects to a small creature with a big reputation, the bark beetle. In a managed forest, foresters fight it hard, because it can kill large stands of spruce. In the core zone of the park, the beetle is allowed to do its work. Patches of grey, dead trees can look alarming. But they let light reach the ground, and a more mixed forest of fir, beech, rowan and spruce begins to grow. A buffer zone at the park edges protects neighbouring private forests.

The park is also home to animals that are shy and rarely seen. The most famous is the capercaillie, a large forest bird, something like a wild turkey, with dark plumage and a red patch above the eye. It needs open, old forest with plenty of berries, and it is very sensitive to disturbance. Some areas are closed at certain times of year to protect it. You may also hear woodpeckers drumming, and on quiet evenings, red deer move along the forest edges.

If you want to understand the park before walking it, the visitor centre at Ruhestein is a good starting point. The building rises among the trees with a long, angular shape and an elevated walkway, and its exhibitions explain the forest, the wildlife and the idea of wilderness. Nearby, long-distance trails cross the ridge, including the Westweg, one of the classic hiking routes that runs the length of the Black Forest from north to south.

And what about the name, Black Forest? Visitors often ask. The simplest answer is the one you can see. Dense stands of spruce and fir make the hillsides look very dark from a distance, especially under cloud. Inside the forest, the canopy closes overhead and the light becomes dim and green. Weather here changes quickly. Mist can roll over the ridge in minutes, and even in summer the high ground can feel cool and damp.

Before you move on, take one more look around you. Notice a fallen trunk softening into moss, a young fir pushing up beside it, the pale bark of a dead spruce still standing. A generation from now, this exact spot will look different, and no one is planning how. That is the point of this place. As you walk away, listen again for the wind in the treetops. It is the same sound, but the forest it moves through is slowly becoming wild again.