Area: 406 km²
Kellerwald-Edersee National Park is a nature reserve in the Hesse region of the central Germany. Kellerwald-Edersee National Park covers an area of 406 km² protecting the area around the Edersee lake. The park contains many hiking trails including Kellerwaldsteig that is a loop trail that is 167 km long and Urwaldsteig Edersee ("Virgin Forest Trail") that reaches 68 km. The terrain of Kellerwald-Edersee National Park area is uneven and hilly although it is not very high. The highest point is Wüstegarten that reaches 675 meters.
Geography
Location
The Kellerwald-Edersee
Nature Park is located in the northern Hessian districts of
Waldeck-Frankenberg and Schwalm-Eder between Waldeck and Vöhl in the
north and Gilserberg in the south. Its westernmost point is to the
west of Frankenau, the easternmost near Bad Zwesten. The communities
Bad Wildungen and Edertal lie on its northeastern edge, Jesberg in
the southeast and Haina and the Gemündener district of Herbelhausen
in the southwest.
The nature park to the southwest of Kassel
(mean distance approx. 40 km as the crow flies) roughly corresponds
to the size of the Kellerwald. Within its boundaries lie - in
addition to some districts of the aforementioned cities and
communities, with the core cities of Bad Wildungen and Frankenau
belonging entirely to the park - the Edersee and the Affolderner
See. In the north it extends over the Edersee, in the south into the
Upper Hessian threshold with the Hemberg ridge bordering the
Kellerwald to the south.
The 57.24 km² Kellerwald-Edersee
National Park extends south of the Edersee in the northern part of
the nature park. North-northeast of the national park on the south
bank of the reservoir is the Edersee wildlife park with the Edersee
wildlife park Greifenwarte and the Fagutop cellar forest information
center.
Mountains and altitude
The lowest point of the
Kellerwald-Edersee Nature Park is in Affoldern in the Edertal below
the barrage of the Affolderner See at 194 m above sea level. NHN,
the highest point on the desert garden (675.3 m), which, together
with the Hunsrück and Sauklippe, forms the Keller mountain ridge
(also known as the Hoher Keller) in the southeast of the Kellerwald.
The best-known, but not necessarily the highest mountains in the
Kellerwald-Edersee Nature Park include all of the “six hundred” -
sorted by height in meters (m) above sea level.
Desert garden
(675.3 m) - with Kellerwald Tower - the highest mountain in the
Kellerwald-Edersee Nature Park and in the Kellerwald
Hohes Lohr
(656.6 m) - with the Hohes Lohr telecommunications tower
Great
Aschkoppe (639.8 m)
Hunsrück (635.9 m)
Traddelkopf (626.4 m) -
highest mountain in the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park
Winterberg (616.6 m) - southern foothills of the Great Aschkoppe
Auenberg (610.7 m)
Kleine Aschkoppe (606.8 m) - western foothills
of the Great Aschkoppe
Ahornkopf (604.1 m) - southwest foothills
of the Traddelkopf
Big head (603.7 m)
Jeust (585.0 m)
Valley passage (566.1 m)
Quernst (approx. 545 m) - northern
foothills of the valley with the ruins of the Quernstkirche (at 535
m) and Quernst chapel
Ermerod / Peterskopf (approx. 539.2 m /
506.6 m) - with two upper basins of the Waldeck pumped storage plant
Homberg (518.5 m) - with a lookout tower on the Homberg
Hundskopf
(470.6 m) - the highest point on the Upper Hessian threshold
Schlossberg Waldeck (see here for the height) - with Waldeck Castle
Rabenstein (439.3 m) - southern flank of the Rabensteinpforte
Uhrenkopf (approx. 405 m) - good view of the Edertalsperre
Pulpit
(399.3 m) - good view of the Waldecker Bay of the Edersee
Flowing waters
The rivers that frame the Kellerwald-Edersee
Nature Park, or that arise and run in it, include (Eder and Wohra
tributaries viewed downstream; their tributaries with their estuary
location / area).
Large-scale nature conservation project in
the Kellerwald region
The large-scale nature conservation project
Kellerwald Region has been running in the nature park since 2005. It
was extended from 2015 to 2018. The project carried out by the
Federal Agency for Nature Conservation deals with the "establishment
and safeguarding of parts of nature and landscape that are worthy of
protection and that are of national significance". In the “Funding
program for the establishment and safeguarding of parts of nature
and landscape worthy of protection with national representative
importance”, the federal government participates in nature
conservation projects which, in an international comparison,
exemplify the commitment of nature conservation in Germany. The
major nature conservation project was approved at the end of 2005.
Six million euros were available for implementation by 2015. In the
planning phase or phase I from 2005 to 2008 the first task was to
draw up a maintenance and development plan for the nature park and a
socio-economic study. This was followed by the approval process for
this plan. In the following implementation phase or phase II from
2009 to 2015, the focus was on implementing the plan. The extension
phase from 2016 to 2018 focuses on the forest and the protection of
the nature park. A system of protected areas should ensure that the
project goals are sustainably secured. In the large-scale nature
conservation project, land was purchased, red spruce forests were
converted into deciduous forests, forest areas were made a total
reserve, water renaturation and maintenance measures on special
grassland areas. In the grassland areas, protective measures were
carried out in heathland and poor grassland. Special species
protection measures were implemented for the whitefly. In addition,
extensive public relations work was carried out in the area,
including information paths, stationary and mobile exhibitions.