The Ottofels ("Otto Rock"), named after Prince Otto of Stolberg-Wernigerode, is a tor and natural monument near Wernigerode in the Harz mountains of central Germany.
The County of Stolberg-Wernigerode was a county of the Holy Roman Empire located in the Harz region around Wernigerode, now part of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was ruled by a branch of the House of Stolberg.
A tor, which is also known by geomorphologists as either a castle koppie or kopje, is a large, free-standing rock outcrop that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest. In the South West of England, the term is commonly also used for the hills themselves – particularly the high points of Dartmoor in Devon and Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.
A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance.
The Ottofels or Ottofelsen [1] lie about 2.5 km southwest of Hasserode in the borough of Wernigerode. It can only be reached on foot, either from the Steinerne Renne halt on the Harz Railway and Brocken Railway or from the car park at the junction of the Thumkuhle and Dränge valleys not far from the road to Drei Annen Hohne.
Hasserode has been a quarter in the town of Wernigerode since 1907, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The Steinerne Renne is a waterfall and natural monument near the town of Wernigerode in the Harz mountains of central Germany.
The Harz Railway or Trans-Harz Railway was formerly the main line of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways and runs north to south right across the Harz Mountains from Wernigerode to Nordhausen. However, the tourist attraction of the Brocken, the highest mountain in the Harz, is so great that the Brocken Railway is effectively the main line today. The Trans-Harz Railway joins up with the Selke Valley Railway to Quedlinburg at Eisfelder Talmühle where all trains are organised to make good connections.
The rocks stand at a height of 584 metres above sea level [2] [3] and are 36 metres high. [2] They are made of coarse-grained granite and have been weathered to form a tor. On 27 July 1892 there was a ceremony to mark the completion of public access to the top, which consisted of several iron ladders. [2] These ladders were replaced after the Wende in 1990. In addition the Ottofels is used for rock climbing by mountaineers.
Normalnull or Normal-Null is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany. Elevations using this reference system were to be marked "Meter über Normal-Null". Normalnull has been replaced by Normalhöhennull.
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.
Die Wende is a German term that has come to signify the complete process of change from the rule of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and a centrally planned economy to the revival of parliamentary democracy and a market economy in the German Democratic Republic around 1989 and 1990. It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process. These processes and events are:
From the summit there is a panoramic view of the mountains and valleys of the Harz as far as its highest peak, the Brocken, and far over the northern Harz Foreland.
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 Ottofels is checkpoint no. 27 in the Harzer Wandernadel hiking network. [4]
The Harzer Wandernadel is a system of hiking awards in the Harz mountains in central Germany. The hiker can earn awards at different levels of challenge by walking to the various checkpoints in the network and stamping his or her passbook to record the visit. With 222 checkpoints in three federal states and across five districts in the Harz and with membership in five figures, the system has gained a following Germany-wide.
