No other municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia has as much of its own forest as Brilon. This makes the town on the northern edge of the Sauerland the town of the forest - a forest in transition. The advantage of the forest owned by the town is unmistakable: discussions with private forest owners about what the ideal forest of the future should look like are no longer necessary here. The latest scientific findings can be implemented directly.
Today, the city of forests is inevitably a city of change. Hurricane Kyrill had already changed the face of Brilon's forests, as the impressive Kyrill Gate on the Rothaarsteig near Petershagen reminds us to this day. Today, climate change and bark beetles are having an even greater impact on the forest landscape. Intact, near-natural forest and forest in transition border each other in Brilon and offer hikers impressive, educational and relaxing nature experiences.
Brilon calls itself the "town of the forest". This is not due to the fact that a particularly high proportion of the urban area is covered with forests. In this respect, other Sauerland municipalities are even further ahead, Kirchhundem for example. The special feature of Brilon is: In no other municipality in the Sauerland is such a high percentage of the forests directly owned by the town.
This means that the town can decide very quickly what should happen in the forests. Planting different tree species has long been a principle in Brilon's municipal forest. Many visitors ask themselves why so many dying spruce forests could be seen and why some of them can still be seen. The answer is simple: forest change takes time. The mature spruce trees were planted 80 years ago. At that time, spruce seemed to be a good solution to quickly replace the forests felled after the end of the war and to prevent the soil from sliding away. Most experts were of the opinion that there was only one solution and that was spruce. Diversification would probably have been better - you're always wiser afterwards. At that time, however, no other equally fast-growing tree was immediately available.
The future of forests is an issue that concerns locals and visitors alike. If you want to experience the forest change in all its facets, you have to go hiking - for example on the Rothaarsteig from Brilon to the south. All conceivable forestry approaches and visions for the future of German forests can be seen along the 150 kilometers to Dillenburg. Incidentally, this destination of the Rothaarsteig, which is already in Hessen, was one of two places in Germany almost 300 years ago where foresters invented a new principle of forest management: Sustainability. Carl von Carlowitz had introduced the concept of sustainability as early as 1713, but it was not until the forestry textbooks of Georg Ludwig Hartig, who had formative experience as state forester in Dillenburg, that the formulations of this principle, which is still so important today, can be found. Since then, the forest world on the Rothaarsteig has been a large laboratory in which generations of foresters, forest owners and farmers have repeatedly tried out new ways of implementing the idea of sustainability.
If you don't feel like walking over 150 kilometers to learn about the forest and have fun at the same time, you will find the perfect walk around the Hängeberg between Brilon, Gudenhagen and the Kupferschlade. The forest fairy trail is only 3.1 km long and offers plenty of adventure stations with a high fun factor - not only for little hikers, but also for the grown-ups. All the playful stations also impart knowledge about the forest along the way. We climb over giant Mikado poles, because this is exactly what a former forest looks like, whose trees were uprooted by a storm. We listen to how different types of wood sound when you try to make music with them. We experience what the weather does to different types of wood over the course of time. And we rest in cozy hammocks with sweeping views of the gently swaying, forest-covered mountains around Brilon.
After these forest experiences, we hike at least a short distance south along the Rothaarsteig through the Kyrilltor, in keeping with the theme. It doesn't have to be all 150 kilometers of the Rothaarsteig. It is 4.4 km from the starting point of the Rothaarsteig to the Kyrilltor - kilometers that are worthwhile. Among other things, the hike takes you along the Landscape Therapy Trail, one of the Sauerland-Seelenorte, whose main theme is "Mindfulness". The Kyrilltor is the next highlight along the way. From there, it is only a good 1.6 km along the Rothaarsteig to the mother of all Sauerland hiking huts: The Hibammenhütte was the first real, rustic hut with a bar on the Rothaarsteig. Today we opt for bread dumplings with wild mushrooms. It sounds Bavarian at first, but it's literally all from Sauerland soil. The mushrooms all come from the forests around the hut.
Klaus-Peter Kappe