Hoher Bogen; Naturpark Oberer Bayerischer Wald

The Upper Bavarian Forest Nature Park (german: Naturpark Oberer Bayerischer Wald) covers an area of 1,796 km² and is thus one of the largest

nature park A nature park, or sometimes natural park, is a designation for a protected natural area by means of long-term land planning, sustainable resource management and limitation of agricultural and real estate developments. These valuable landscape ...

s in the German state of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Landscape

The nature park covers the whole territory of the county of

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script ***Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albanian ...

and the eastern part of the county of

Schwandorf Schwandorf is a town on the river Naab in the Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany, which is the seat of the Schwandorf district. Sights * Catholic parish church of St. Jakob * Kreuzberg Church: Catholic parish, monastic and pilgrimage church of ...

. In the northwest it borders the Upper Palatine Forest Nature Park, in the east, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, and in the south on the

Bavarian Forest Nature Park The Bavarian Forest Nature Park (german: Naturpark Bayerischer Wald) covers an area north of the Danube as far as the border ridge with the Czech Republic. Its sponsor organisation is the ''Naturpark Bayerischer Wald'' whose head office is i ...

.
Its highest summits are the

Großer Osser The Osser (Czech: ''Ostrý'') is a mountain on the border between Germany and the Czech Republic, in the Bavarian Forest and Bohemian Forest and which belongs to the Kunisch Mountains. Location and description A distinction is made between th ...

(1,293 m),

Hoher Bogen The Hohe Bogen (archaically often Hohenbogen) is a roughly 8-kilometre-long mountain ridge in the Bavarian Forest. It rises in the Bavarian province of Upper Palatinate in the county of Cham and is almost equally divided between the municipalit ...

(1,079 m),

Kaitersberg The Kaitersberg is a low mountain crest up to east of Bad Kötzting in the Bavarian Forest in southern Germany. Its long ridge runs eastwards towards the Großer Arber. The highest peak on the ridge is the 1,132 metre high Großer Riedelstein ...

(1,133 m),

Enzian The Enzian was a German WWII surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile that was the first to use a radio controlled guidance system. During the missile's development in the late stages of the war it was plagued by organisational problems and was ca ...

(1,285 m), Schwarzeck (1,238 m),

Zwercheck Zwercheck ( cz, Svaroh) is a mountain of the Bavarian Forest (german: Bayerischer Wald) and Bohemian Forest The Bohemian Forest, known in Czech as Šumava () and in German as Böhmerwald, is a low mountain range in Central Europe. Geographi ...

(1,333 m) and

Kleiner Arber The Kleiner Arber, sometimes also the Little Arber, in the Bavarian Forest is a mountain, , and the highest peak in the Bavarian province of Upper Palatinate. The border with Lower Bavaria runs over its summit and that of the Großer or Great A ...

(1,384 m). The proportion of forest today is about 40 percent. 76 percent of the nature park territory is protected and 2,084 hectares have been designated as

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

Geology

The

mica schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

on the Osser and the chalk transgression in the Obertrübenbach Quarry are among Bavaria's most attractive

geotope A geotope is the geological component of the abiotic matrix present in an ecotope. Example geotopes might be an exposed outcrop of rocks, an erratic boulder, a grotto or ravine, a cave, an old stone wall marking a property boundary, and so forth. ...

s. In addition to the dominant crystalline bedrock of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

there are various

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...

layers, siliceous and calcareous rocks, ancient

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

s and, in the geological feature of the 150-kilometre-long Pfahl ridge,

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

and

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

, which in places form rock pinnacles and towers. Guided tours in the ''Fürstenzeche Lam'' are offered for mineral collectors.

Nature

The

spignel ''Meum'' is a monotypic genus in the family Apiaceae. Its only species is ''Meum athamanticum'', a glabrous, highly aromatic (aroma compound), perennial plant. Common names in the UK include baldmoney, meu or meum, and spignel (also spikenel and ...

plant, which occurs in these mountains and from which the ''Bärwurz'' spirit is distilled, is well known. In some meadow valleys, rare

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

s are found. For bird lovers, the Regentalaue nature reserve west of

with the Rötelseeweiher ponds offers good opportunities for observation.

External links

Upper Bavarian Forest Nature Park

Bayerischer-wald.org – Tourist website of the municipalities in the Upper Bavarian Forest Nature Park
{{Coordinate, NS=49.241397, EW=12.695905, type=landmark, region=DE-BY Nature parks in Bavaria Bavarian Forest Cham (district)

Landscape

Geology

Nature

See also

External links