Best backpacking trails in Harz National Park

The Harz National Park is located in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It is almost completely covered by spruce and beech forests and is home to many unique animal species such as lynx, wildcats and peregrine falcons.

The most popular and probably best-known excursion destination is the Brocken, the highest mountain in northern Germany. Once you have reached the summit, you can enjoy a refreshment in the restaurant up there or simply take in the marvellous panorama.

Important rules of behaviour apply throughout the park, which are designed to protect the flora and fauna and preserve nature. With several million visitors a year, a natural paradise needs rules that provide adequate protection for plants and animals and guarantee that you can continue to enjoy the legendary mountain wilderness undisturbed in the future.

Behavioural etiquette in the Harz National Park:1) In the national park, you must keep to the paths. This means: stay on the signposted hiking trails. There are around 600 kilometres of these alone, leading through fascinating landscapes and to magnificent viewpoints.

2) Don't leave your rubbish in the forest, but please use the rubbish and recycling bins at the end of your hike. More than 1,000 bags of rubbish have to be collected along the trails in the Harz National Park every year. But carelessly discarded packaging can easily kill animals! If they mistake the rubbish for food and eat it, if they get tangled up in it and can no longer free themselves or if they build such watertight nests with plastic rubbish that their young drown in them when it rains!

3) Dogs are very welcome in the Harz National Park, but please keep them on a lead. Even our most loyal companion can become faint-hearted if he gets his nose in a deer calf or lynx. Spare the wild animals the dangerous chase and your dog the danger of disappearing between often metre-deep granite chasms. Important request: Take filled dog waste bags back with you, they really have no place in the forest.

4) Don't take anything out of the national park that naturally belongs there. Every animal and every plant has its place in the cycle of nature in the protected area. This is especially true for berries and mushrooms.

5) Do not light fires in the national park! This also includes barbecues and outdoor cooking utensils because fires spread quickly, even in cold weather. Precious areas are destroyed by fires every year.

6) Please refrain from smoking in the National Park from 15 February to 31 October due to the risk of forest fires.

7) There is also a year-round ban on setting off fireworks in the entire national park area, including on the Brockenkuppe. Both the banging and the light and dazzling effects pose a serious threat to wildlife, which is often at its limit in winter anyway.

8) The operation of remote-controlled aircraft (e.g. drones) is prohibited in nature reserves and therefore also in the entire national park area.

9) Camping in the national park is not permitted. Use the official facilities.

10) Cycling is permitted on almost all hiking trails. Please note: Hikers have priority. Only a few paths are closed to cyclists - mostly because the paths are really not suitable for bikes.

11) Horse riding is only permitted on appropriately signposted paths.