Burgbach Waterfall

The Burgbach Waterfall was another one of the waterfalls we visited while making the drive between Freiburg and Baden Baden. This pretty tranquil waterfall was said to have a cumulative drop of 32m making in a well-forested setting, which was the kind of combination that compelled us to choose this excursion over several others that we had considered in our limited time in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald).

The hike began from a car park right off the road near Bad Rippolsdau (see directions below). I then walked along a narrow residential road (called Burgbachstrasse) that passed by a few homes. During this stretch of the walk, it appeared that there was some kind of lookout (I believe it’s called the Burgbachfelsen) perched atop a cliff that would yield views of the Wolftal Valley (the valley containing Bad Rippolsdau).

After about 500m, a narrow trail on the right ascended steeply into the greenery as it left the Burgbachstraße. This narrow trail continued for around another 300m more (providing nice views over the residences I had just passed) before it joined up with a wider and more well-signed trail at a T-junction. At this point, I made a left at the T-junction where the signage suggested it was another 0.1km further to the Burgbachwasserfall.

Shortly after following the wider path, I reached another trail junction. This time, a green sign pointed to the right as it then led up some steps towards the now-visible Burgbach Waterfall. With all the trees in the way, I had to get further up this ascent in order to get past the trees and get a cleaner look at the falls.

There was a bit of a trade off between getting clean looks at the falls but getting very close to the falls (making it appear smaller than it really was) versus standing further back amongst the trees where the late morning sun was shining right against my line-of-sight towards the falls. I was also able to scramble a little bit higher for a more angled top down view of the falls, but for all intents and purposes, this was the end of my excursion.

While there were opportunities to do a little more exploring (especially to the top of the falls and possible to the lookout that I saw perched on a cliff earlier on), I wound up returning to the car park. Overall, my trip logs (corroborated by the signage) suggested that I had hiked 1.8km round trip, and it took me around an hour away from the car.

Finally, for a bit of nomenclature semantics, I’ve seen this waterfall referred to as the Burgbachwasserfall and Burgbach Wasserfall, which were among the variations that I’ve come across when it came to how Germans appeared to have referenced it.