Snow pot

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The wild Gera in the snow pot
Information board of the community of Gehlberg, since 2019 district of Suhl , in Thuringia, Germany about the valley called Schneetiegel

The snow pot is a Kartal and at the same time the deepest valley in Thuringia. It is located near Gehlberg in the independent city of Suhl . The height difference between the Schneekopf summit and the bottom of the snow crucible is up to 380 meters over a distance of around two kilometers. A striking steep slope with a lookout point on the west side is called Felsenschlag (at approx. 820 m).

More or less powerful springs of the Wilde Gera river arise on all flanks of the valley . This deep, very narrow valley is surrounded by the Schneekopf (978 m), the Langen Rain ( Dörrkopf 844 m) and the Brand (885 m). Due to the shadow effect of the mountains, ice and snow fields remain in some parts of the valley floor until early summer. The extreme living conditions have produced a unique flora.

Above the Am Schneetiegel refuge, there are terrain structures in the high forest that are viewed as ground and terminal moraines of a glacier tongue and thus represent unique evidence of the last Ice Age in the Thuringian Forest.

The snow pot was considered inaccessible until the 16th century.

“ As the removal of the wood is difficult in these narrow and rocky gorges, this was hardly used at all in earlier times. The trees, dying of old age, between which tall ferns sprouted, made these grounds even more impassable. In more recent times, when wood has been used to advantage by charring, this has changed somewhat, and those gorges have become lighter and more accessible. "

Charcoal burners and hunters who had penetrated the narrow valley gave this area the ambiguous name of hell. In the detailed geographical description of the Duchy of Gotha file "Fürstliches Amt Schwarzwald " from 1642, the oldest mention of the forest place name Schneetiegel can be found.

Below the mountain summit of the Schneekopf there is still a memorial stone for the forester Johann Valentin Grahner from Gräfenroda who was shot there on September 16, 1690 "unexpectedly" and "in the form of a deer" by his nephew. The mysterious circumstances of his death later inspired Carl Maria von Weber to write the opera Der Freischütz .

Mineral collectors visit the valley, with a bit of luck you can discover crystalline inclusions in the porphyry rock , for example agate , rock crystal, amethyst , smoky quartz and iron mica. These rock nodules are also known as snow head balls , which often reveal their glittering interior only after being hit with a hammer.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erhard Rosenkranz: Travel Guide Thuringian Forest and peripheral areas . Ed .: Horst H. Müller. Tourist-Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-350-00263-3 , geographical overview, p. 22-24 .
  2. ↑ Gustav von Zahn: The moraine in the snow pot in the Thuringian Forest . In: Contributions to regional studies of Thuringia . Publishing house by Gustav Fischer, Jena 1919, p. 32 .
  3. ↑ Hieronymus Ludwig Wilhelm Völker: The Thuringian Forest Mountains, ... A guide for travelers . Weimar 1836, p. 182 .
  4. ^ Description of the Princely Office of the Black Forest . In: Gotha State Archives (ed.): Chamber I, Acte M 310 . Gotha 1642.
  5. ^ Sven Gerth et al .: Gehlberg. Atonement Crosses and Murder Stones (Wiki), 2013, accessed July 4, 2013 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 30 ″  N , 10 ° 46 ′ 6 ″  E