The Oker valley rock tour - Die Okertal-Felsentour

A beautiful walk along the many rock formations that are so typical for this area and through vast stretches of forests and open areas.

The track starts from the parking lot next to the Romkerhaller Wasserfall.
We first pass underneath this waterfall and then go up on a fairly steep nature trail. Not much later we pass over the top of the waterfall where the water falls about 70 meters down and we have a nice view of the valley below.
We then continue along the stream that supplies the water for the waterfall. It appears to be channeled, so the Romkerhall waterfall is artificially created!
We continue to go up through a nice forest until we reach the first combination of special rock formations: the Mooswand, the Feigenbaumklippe and the Mausefalle. We can easily climb the Feigenbaumklippe and once on top we have an impressive view.
Especially the Mausefalle catches the eye and stimulates the immagination: it is a formation in which a huge rock balances on two narrow, superimposed rocks, with underneath a cavity. It seems a matter of time before everything falls down, it is in any case incomprehensible how these stones came together like this. Right next to it, but fortunately not too close, we find a picnic table.
A little bit further we pass the Kästegrill where we can eat and drink something (Tuesday to Sunday, when the weather is nice). This small eatery undoubtedly derives its name from the Kästeklippe that we see a little later. The Kästeklippe is portrayed as the highlight of the area in quite a few walks, but several of the other rock formations along this route will undoubtedly appeal more to the imagination.
Shortly after The Kästeklippe we have the choice whether or not to walk the second circle of this route. This second one is about two and a half kilometres long.
This extra circle takes us along a few pleasant nature trails and along the Treppenstein. This is a huge rock formation that we can easily get on top of via easily accessible stairs. Once on top we have a very nice view of the surrounding area. It's important to walk this second circle in the indicated direction (counterclockwise) because in this way it's much easier.

After walking around like this, no one can have missed that there are whole areas of dead trees. How did that happen?

We can find an interesting reflection on the causes of the tree dieback on the blog the Reisefeder:
The Lower Saxony State Forests inform about the forest change in the Harz Mountains. You can clearly see that something dramatic is happening here: Entire spruce monocultures tower dry and silver-grey into the sky. Drought and storms have hit them so hard in recent years that they can no longer develop enough tree resin. They usually use this to ward off pests such as the bark beetle. These beetles could now infest entire areas, easily killing tree by tree in the monoculture. That's why we hear again and again that the bark beetle is to blame for the dying of spruces in the Harz Mountains. But this is wrong. The bug only does what a bug has to do. Humans first opened all the doors to it through anthropogenic climate change with its increasing weather extremes (drought!) and through the consistent destruction of a resilient mixed forest. Doing so the formerly natural forest was transformed into a tree field with non-site-appropriate trees (at least not here, in the lower altitudes). Blaming a bug for this disaster now doesn't count.
(source: https://reisefeder.de/2021/07/harz-sagenhafte-felsen-im-okertal/ )

After completing this second circle, our route winds back to the starting point on easy unpaved roads, where we will occasionally see several more interesting rock formations. The Crocodile is worth mentioning.

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