The Schimmelkopf or Weiskircher Höhe is a mountain that rises in the

Schwarzwälder Hochwald The Schwarzwälder Hochwald (; literally 'Black Forest High Forest'), not to be confused with the High Black Forest, is the high south-western part of the Hunsrück in the German states of Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate. SWRDer Schwarzwälder Ho ...

(part of the

Hunsrück The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...

) on the boundary between the counties of

Trier-Saarburg Trier-Saarburg (; lb, Landkrees Tréier-Saarburg ) is a district in the west of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the north and clockwise) Bitburg-Prüm, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Birkenfeld, Sankt Wendel (Saarland), and ...

(

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

) and

Merzig-Wadern Merzig-Wadern is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the northwest of the Saarland, Germany. Neighboring districts are Trier-Saarburg, Sankt Wendel, Saarlouis, the French ''département'' Moselle, and Luxembourg. History The district was created in 1816 wh ...

(

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

) and, at , is the second highest peak in the German state of Saarland.

Geography

Location

The Schimmelkopf rises in the southwestern part of the Schwarzwälder Hochwald along the northern state border of the Saarland. Its summit lies within the

Saar-Hunsrück Nature Park The Saar-Hunsrück Nature Park (german: Naturpark Saar-Hunsrück) was established in 1980 and covers an area of just under 2,000 km² in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland. The authority responsible for the nature par ...

, about 4.8 km north of

Weiskirchen Weiskirchen is a municipality in the district Merzig-Wadern, in Saarland, Germany. It is situated in the Hunsrück, approx. 20 km northeast of Merzig, and 25 km southeast of Trier Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in Englis ...

(Saarland), around 3.7 km southeast of Mandern and circa 3.3 km south of Waldweiler (both in Rhineland-Palatinate).

Watercourses

North of the Schimmelkopfs rises the

Ruwer The Ruwer is a river in Germany with a length of . It is a right tributary of the Moselle. The valley of the Ruwer is a part of the Moselle wine-growing region near Trier in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is famous for its Riesling wines ...

tributary of Burkelsbach and, to its west, the Siebenbornbach, whose waters flow through the Winkelbach into the Burkelsbach. To the west-southwest lies the source of the

Holzbach Holzbach is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Simmern ...

and on the southern flank is that of its tributary, the Schlittentaler Bach. On the southern mountainside in the area where it transitions to the Teufelskopf rises, in the east, the Kübelbach, which feeds the

Wahnbach Wahnbach is a river of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It flows into the Sieg near Hennef Hennef (Sieg) () is a town in the Rhein-Sieg district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the river Sieg, approx. south-east of Si ...

that runs to the southeast of the Schimmelkopf.

Second highest mountain in the Saarland

In the 20th century the

Dollberg The Dollberg is a mountain in the Dollberge range in central Germany and the highest point in the state of Saarland. It is and lies within the Schwarzwälder Hochwald on the boundary between the counties of Trier-Saarburg (Rhineland-Palatinate) ...

and the Schimmelkopf (at the Weiskircher Höhe) were named as the highest points in the Saarland with their heights given in whole metres as . According to more precise measurements by the State Office for Cadastre, Survey and Mapping (''Landesamt für Kataster-, Vermessungs- und Kartenwesen'') in 2005, the Schimmelkopf measures 694.8 m and is thus around 0.6 m lower than the Dollberg which makes it only the second highest peak in the Saarland. Nevertheless, on official maps neither the name nor its official height of 695.4 m will be found next to the summit of the Dollberg.

References

External links

Schimmelkopf
map and info at saarlandbilder.net {{Germany-geologic-formation-stub Mountains under 1000 metres Mountains and hills of Rhineland-Palatinate Mountains and hills of the Saarland Trier-Saarburg Merzig-Wadern