Stamp location 164 / Stepmother

The “Stiefmutter” crossroads is located above the Hundertmorgenwiese meadow in the Elsbach valley near Zorge.

The Harz moun­tain mead­ows are char­ac­ter­ized by a unique diver­si­ty of plant species and are con­sid­ered botan­i­cal trea­sures. They are the result of an ancient method of cul­ti­va­tion in which they were always mowed and dried for hay from June 24th (St. John’s Day) as valu­able fod­der for the win­ter. With the aban­don­ment of agri­cul­ture in the small Harz vil­lages, the moun­tain mead­ows also disappeared. 

The Low­er Sax­ony State Forestry Admin­is­tra­tion has set itself the task of pre­serv­ing these moun­tain mead­ows, which are pro­tect­ed by the EU. It main­tains the exist­ing moun­tain mead­ows through pro­fes­sion­al care and use and recul­ti­vates for­mer moun­tain mead­ows by remov­ing trees and sub­se­quent main­te­nance. For exam­ple, over 2,000 trees were felled on the Hun­dert­mor­gen­wiese in 2005 and the mead­ow area was increased by 25 hectares. 

From the park­ing lot at the Kurhaus in Zorge, the sign­post­ed Berg­wiesen­weg trail leads via the Wen­dele­iche HWN 165 to the Stief­mut­ter. From there, you can also include the “Rot­er Schuss” HWN 90 stamp­ing sta­tion in the tour.