View of Niederburg Castle – Windsborn Crater summit loop from Manderscheid

Mountain biking trails

View of Niederburg Castle – Windsborn Crater summit loop from Manderscheid

Hard

4.6

(20)

riders

View of Niederburg Castle – Windsborn Crater summit loop from Manderscheid

02:14

25.2km

570m

Mountain biking

Hard mountain bike ride. Good fitness required. Advanced riding skills necessary. Some portions of the route may require you to push your bike. The starting point of the route is right next to a parking lot.

Last updated: October 30, 2026

Tips

Includes a segment that goes up or down a series of steps

You may need to carry your bike.

After 22.4 km for 4 m

Waypoints

Start point

Parking

Get Directions

217 m

View of Niederburg Castle

Highlight • Viewpoint

Here at the vantage point on the road you can take photos of the Niederburg.

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570 m

View of the Manderscheid Castles

Highlight • Viewpoint

Beautiful castles! The lower castle is big and you can even visit it, but the upper castle is free to enter and you have a wonderful view of the lower castle!

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738 m

The Manderscheid Castles

Highlight • Castle

7.33 km

Bench with view of Bergkratersee

Highlight • Viewpoint

7.49 km

Windsborn Crater summit

Highlight • Viewpoint

One of the few volcanic crater lakes north of the Alps: the Windsborn crater lake, formed around 30,000 years ago. While maars are blasted into the earth as craters when lava hits water-bearing layers, the Windsborn is a stratovolcano that has built itself up as a mountain on top of the basement. Layers of lava alternate with slag and ash thrown out of the volcano. Such an outbreak usually lasts from days to a few weeks. Today you can look down from the summit cross to the lake, which is only around two meters shallow. The water used to be drained to extract peat. It's over. Today the lake is filled up by rainwater. The summit cross is ideal for a picnic. In this audio contribution, Prof. Achim Brauer from the Georesearch Center Potsdam explains how the crater lake was formed: soundcloud.com/zeitwissen/wie-entstand-der-windsborn.

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