The Ackertklippe is a rock formation in Königshütte in the district of Harz in the Harz mountains of Germany. It is composed mainly of granite. A nearby road is named after the crag.
Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be predominantly white, pink, or gray in color, depending on their mineralogy. The word "granite" comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a holocrystalline rock. Strictly speaking, granite is an igneous rock with between 20% and 60% quartz by volume, and at least 35% of the total feldspar consisting of alkali feldspar, although commonly the term "granite" is used to refer to a wider range of coarse-grained igneous rocks containing quartz and feldspar.
The crag can be climbed by a footpath. A refuge hut was built on the summit at the beginning of the 20th century. From the crag there is a comprehensive view of the village, the river Bode and the surrounding Harz mountains as far as the Wurmberg and the Brocken. The Ackertklippe rock formation also lends its name to the pub and boarding house Am Felsen, which is located below the crag on the Bode.
The Bode is a river in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a left tributary of the Saale. It rises in the Harz mountains and drains them in a northerly direction. After 169 kilometres (105 mi) it discharges into the Saale at Nienburg. The river is named after a legendary giant, the wild, rampaging, Bohemian, Prince Bodo, who, according to the Rosstrappe legend changed into a marauding dog that guarded the crown of Princess Brunhilde in the Kronensumpf in the present-day Bode Gorge. The gorge is the narrow section of the Bode valley between Treseburg and Thale.
Wurmberg is a town in the district of Enz in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
The Brocken, also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is the highest peak of the Harz mountain range and also the highest peak of Northern Germany; it is located near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt between the rivers Weser and Elbe. Although its elevation of 1,141 metres (3,743 ft) is below alpine dimensions, its microclimate resembles that of mountains of about 2,000 m (6,600 ft). The peak above the tree line tends to have a snow cover from September to May, and mists and fogs shroud it up to 300 days of the year. The mean annual temperature is only 2.9 °C (37.2 °F). It is the easternmost mountain in northern Germany; travelling east in a straight line, the next prominent elevation would be in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The Ackertklippe hosts regular events such as Easter Fire (Osterfeuer) [1] and Walpurgis Night. [2]
Easter fires are typically bonfires lit at Easter as part of liturgical and secular celebrations.
Walpurgis Night, an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night, also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve, is the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia, and is celebrated on the night of 30 April and the day of 1 May. This feast commemorates the canonization of Saint Walpurga and the movement of her relics to Eichstätt, both of which occurred on 1 May 870.
