Rheinsteig Stage 13: Kamp-Bornhofen–Kestert (north–south)

The Rheinsteig between Kamp-Bornhofen and Kestert is as beautiful as the saga of the two brothers is gruesome. The main part of our tour starts at the viewing pavilion on the edge of the Kamper Hang. Here, you’ve already mastered the first few metres in altitude. The access path with its yellow Rheinsteig signs steadily guides us up a steep nature trail from Kamp-Bornhofen.

The track then follows the Avenue of Trees where each year on April 25 a new tree is planted. There’s another short spurt uphill before you catch your breath at the Jakobstempel viewing pavilion on the Pfählsberg. The next stop is the Wilhelmshöhe where the two castles of Liebenstein and Sterrenberg seem close enough to touch.

To reach them, however, you first have to descend the 82 steps of the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in the forest down to the valley of Bornhofen Stream and then up again to the castles on the other side (both have restaurants).  Here, you can take a short detour to the pilgrimage church in Bornhofen. At this point a path cuts off into the woods that first runs up to the Brömserkopf viewpoint and then to a large fenced area where English Exmoor ponies and South African Boer goats keep the undergrowth down. You have to climb over a stile to enter the paddock (there’s a gap in the fence for dogs). You exit the other end of the enclosure through a large turnstile.

Once outside the grazing area, it’s another steep climb up to the Lykershausen Plateau, the highest point on the Rheinsteig. It’s then little more than a stroll along a path snaking gently down through the woods to the glorious viewing pavilion on the Hindenburghöhe up above Kestert, where to finish you hike down a short, steep track to your destination for today.