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Germany Germany observation tower

Hochfirst Tower

You can see 206 km from here, looking east.

Calculating the panorama…

Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.

The view

Up to 206 km away.

Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.

77out of 100

Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).

  • 206 kmFarthest ridgelooking east
  • 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 1,338Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 1,197 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint

From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.

The sun

The best sunsets are from July to September.

When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.

  1. Jansouth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset20%
  2. Febwest10 min before the sea-level sunset24%
  3. Marwest6 min before the sea-level sunset32%
  4. Aprwest2 min before the sea-level sunset34%
  5. Maynorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset30%
  6. Junnorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset33%
  7. Julnorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset38%
  8. Augwest2 min before the sea-level sunset38%
  9. Sepwest4 min before the sea-level sunset38%
  10. Octwest12 min before the sea-level sunset30%
  11. Novsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset22%
  12. Decsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset19%
  • Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
  • Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
  • %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).

The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.

The place

Hochfirst Tower.

Observation tower on Hochfirst Mountain in Black Forest

Hochfirst Tower is an observation tower in Germany, 1,197 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 206 km away, looking east.

1,338 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Säntis (2,501 m), 113 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from July to September.

Hochfirstturm Neustadt
BonMichel · CC BY-SA 3.0

Get there and stay

Plan the visit

A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

From above

The viewpoint and its surroundings.

The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Hochfirst Tower seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Seen from above: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6 × 6 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around, in OpenStreetMap

  • 16other viewpoints within 5 kmTitisee-Feldberg Höllental, Schleifenfelsen, Hochfirstturm and 13 more
  • 16named peaks within 5 kmWeißtannenhöhe, Hochfirst, Vögelefelsen and 13 more
  • 6cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
  • 126marked trails within 3 kmMittelweg, Westweg (Westliche Variante), Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee [Lenzkirch] and 123 more
  • 34shelters and huts within 5 kmBalzenwaldhütte, Weisstannenhöhe Schutzhütte, Hans Straub Hütte and 31 more
  • 127car parks within 3 km
  • 4visitor centres within 5 kmKurhaus, Touristinformation Kappel, Tourist Information and 1 more
  • 55restaurants and cafés within 3 km
  • 31campsites within 10 kmBühlhof, Campingplatz Weiherhof, Bankenhof and 28 more
  • 268places to stay within 10 kmAlpenblick Saig, Neubierhäusle, Sonneneck and 265 more

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

In our other atlases

What you see from Hochfirst Tower, and what is near.

Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.

Peakyas153 mountains within 25 km
Seebuck1,449 m · 13 kmSpießhorn1,351 m · 13 kmFeldberg1,494 m · 14 kmHerzogenhorn1,416 m · 14 kmSilberberg1,359 m · 16 kmStübenwasen1,389 m · 16 kmSchauinsland1,284 m · 21 kmKandel1,241 m · 22 km
Forestyas3 forests and trees within 15 km
Feldseewald · 12 kmScheibenfelsen · 14 kmNapf · 15 km
Darkskyas1 dark-sky places within 30 km
Planetarium FreiburgBortle 7 · 28 km
Canyonyas1 canyons within 20 km
Hirschsprung · 15 km
Cascadyas3 waterfalls within 15 km
Menzenschwander Waterfall · 11 kmWasserfälle im Maria-Loch · 11 kmFeldsee-Wasserfall · 12 km

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.

Photographs

The view, as people saw it.

Hochfirstturm
Andreas Schwarzkopf · CC BY-SA 3.0
Antennen Hochfirstturm20062016
Zonk43 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Aussichtsplattform Hochfirstturm20062016
Zonk43 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Other viewpoints nearby.

Hochfirst Tower

Germany

  • 77Viewyas Score
  • 206 kmFarthest ridge
  • 1,338Peaks in view
  • 1,197 mAltitude

Feldberg

Germany · 14 km

  • 77Viewyas Score
  • 242 kmFarthest ridge
  • 1,545Peaks in view
  • 1,490 mAltitude

See the guide

Wanne Observation Tower

Germany · 28 km

  • 77Viewyas Score
  • 181 kmFarthest ridge
  • 878Peaks in view
  • 780 mAltitude

See the guide

Roßkopf Tower

Germany · 24 km

  • 72Viewyas Score
  • 127 kmFarthest ridge
  • 277Peaks in view
  • 743 mAltitude

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q880481) · CC0
SunJ. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms
Peaks in viewPeakyas (Wikidata, CC0)
Panorama and altitudeCopernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
CloudsNASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2)
What is around© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Sister atlasesPeakyas, Lakeyas, Forestyas, Birdyas, Darkskyas, Canyonyas, Cascadyas

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.