Destination: Germany : Afoot in the Black Forest : With dinner, dessert and a cozy inn at the end of the trail, hiking these woods is a cakewalk

The Germans call the gorge Hollental--Vale of Hell, a vast ravine leading from the Feldberg peak down to the Rhine Valley below the body of water called Titisee. At the narrowest part, called the Hirschsprung (deer leap), an escarpment rises 263 feet, and at the top stands an eight-foot-tall statue of a stag, silhouetted against the sky, poised to leap the 30-foot gap to the other side.

According to legend, a bold stag once did escape pursuing hunters by springing across the chasm. To commemorate this splendid feat, the hunters erected a wooden statue--later replacing it with the imposing copper monument that’s there today.

The Black Forest is a mystical world rife with such legends, folk tales, traditions and odd customs. In fact, its residents tend to think of themselves more as Black Foresters than Germans. It’s a great woodland that stretches from Baden-Baden in the north to Freiburg in the south. But the heart of the Black Forest lies mainly in its southern reaches, where tourists are attracted by its dense woods, wild rivers and about 200 serene villages.

For me, even the name is veiled in an ominous mystique: Black Forest. It calls up visions of stags at bay; of royal hunting parties riding through inky, brooding woods; of witches luring innocent kinder ; of elves turning out carved clocks.

Then one sunny week last year in late September I saw it as the Germans do, on hiking trails with sunshine turning the forest green and gold.

Anything but flat and brooding, the Black Forest, Schwarzwald in German, soars and dips over a modest mountain range of the same name. Eighty miles long and no more than 35 miles wide at best, this great woodland is tucked into the southwestern corner of the country, where France and Switzerland meet the German border. Its sunny meadows and broad open valleys are defined but not dominated by fir woodlands so dense that they sometimes appear black (hence the name). There are roughly 13,000 miles of hiking trails, and except for the main highway, the Hochstrasse (high road), which runs 73 gorgeous miles from Baden-Baden to Waldshut-Tiengen like a spine through the fabled woods, the one characteristic common to every square foot of the forest’s terrain is the silence. Even your footsteps are muffled by the carpet of pine needles. About the only sound you may hear is an occasional bird call--maybe, if you’re lucky, that of the cuckoo.

On our previous half-dozen ventures into the Black Forest, motoring from one village to another, my husband and I had observed that on weekends the myriad paths sprouting off the main road into the woods abounded with hikers, all dressed in the customary costume--knickers, knee socks and boots, carrying bulging rucksacks and holding maps encased in plastic. They’d stop at the large panoramic guide map posted along the highway, check it with their own maps, and plunge into the woods.

Anyone interested can simply stop at a local Rathaus (city hall) and sign up for one of the guided treks conducted by local volunteer hiking enthusiasts. But we decided to try something called Wunderhiking--a circle tour worked out by a group of Black Forest hotels that allows independent hikers to follow a trail from one inn to another, knowing that at day’s end a cozy room and a gourmet dinner will be waiting. A map and detailed instructions are issued. A day’s hike typically runs 10 to 17 miles along a trail carefully marked with an official symbol created by the Black Forest Society--a red-and-white clock face on a white background. Along the way, there are farmhouses, Gasthofe and restaurants for the thirsty and hungry and weary, and fellow hikers who pass by with cheery “ Guten Tag “ greetings. Even with a lifelong knack for losing my way in my own house, I had a sense of security.

Hikers’ luggage is moved by van from one hotel to the next, and at journey’s end, your own car, which was left at the first hotel, will be delivered to your last stop. Other than that, hikers are on their own.

It’s a circle tour and could begin and end anywhere, but the classic option is to start from Triberg at the Parkhotel Wehrle, a gracious hostelry that has been in the Wehrle-Blum family since 1707. Ernest Hemingway stayed here while fishing the local streams. Mark Twain, too, passed this way in 1878. The hotel’s present owner is Claus Blum, a lifelong rambler and fisherman who devised the Wunderhiking concept a dozen years ago. Surrounding the main building, a grassy garden area is dotted by white clapboard cottages elegantly furnished in typical European style. Here, over tea and cakes, Blum indoctrinated us.

We would be treading tracks and trails once walked by 18th-century clock traders as they collected the output of scores of skilled woodcarvers to take to market. Our first stop along the trail was at one of the massive, high-peaked farmhouses that have been a trademark of the Schwarzwald region for more than 400 years. One of the oldest, Reinertonishof, was built in 1619 and is still lived in by the family descendants.

Frau Duffner came out to greet us and offer a dram of her homemade schnapps. I gasped as the liquid burned its way down to my stomach, but the good Frau assured me it had already been watered down from what the family normally drank, to meet government requirements.

The house is also a smokehouse and Frau Duffner showed us into a dark, pungent room, blackened by centuries of smoking hams and bacons. She sliced off strips from a fat ham hanging from the ceiling and handed them to us. The taste was rich and smoky. “You see,” she exulted in German, “this is the real Black Forest ham. It is smoked for five months but not salted.”

These are not the soaring Alps. The landscape seems more manageable. Perfectly etched parades of firs march to the horizon. Red-roofed villages snuggle neatly into green valleys. But what surprised us most as we viewed the scene from the higher reaches were the vast swatches of wonderful autumn color--magenta, cadmium yellow, burnt umber--overlaying the green pines, almost overwhelming them.

Each mile brought something new. One day we came upon a peaty lake called Blindensee. Another time we paid homage to the source of the Danube. This foot-wide stream spills out of a hill, past clumps of yellow marsh marigold, on its way to Vienna, Budapest and the Black Sea, 1,800 miles away.

And at day’s end, footsore and bone-weary, we had the comfort of a hot tub in a pleasant hotel, a hardy table of roast pork, the tiny dumplings called Spatzle , and a slab of Schwarzwalderkirschtorte (Black Forest cake) plus a prayer of gratitude that unlike the cuckoo-clock traders, we didn’t have to make the hike with clocks strapped to our backs.

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There are several Michelin-beknighted restaurants in the Black Forest, but also many not so honored that are a delight for gourmets. At the Adler-Post in Titisee-Neustadt, a village where we overnighted, the specialty is roast venison flavored with prunes, served with freshly made noodles, under a juicy broth of cream and wine. Owner - chef Werner Ketterer is a raconteur of considerable talent, and likes to tell how the Titisee (Titi Lake) takes its name from Titus, the Roman emperor, and has nothing to do with what Americans think it does.

We never did see deer or wild boar on our walks, but occasionally had the company of squirrels; and sometimes, from some hidden perch came the wacky call of the cuckoo.

Cuckoos are shy, and Black Foresters say you’ll never actually see one. But by unofficial count there are probably a trillion of them. And that’s why the Black Forest claims to be the cuckoo capital of the world and home of the cuckoo clock. It is a sore wound that some people give the credit to Switzerland.

We spent six days walking in the countryside, and it has left a host of memories that could only come from traveling afoot: half-timbered houses with roofs swooping almost to the ground, a farmer harvesting wild honey. Not the least of our memories are the accommodations provided by the innkeepers. The Adler-Post in Neustadt is a member of the Romantik chain of European hotels, and romantic it was, with furnishings more Bavarian than Bavaria. The Hirschen in St. Margen opened onto a forest and seemed a part of it. The Parkhotel Wehrle was solid elegance. The sauna at the Schwarzwaldhotel Bonndorf was like heaven at the end of a long day’s walk.

We left the forest by way of Freiburg, a university city of 180,000 that is acknowledged to be the Black Forest’s capital. Built around a beautiful cathedral whose 370-foot spire with filigree stonework is often called “the finest tower in Christendom,” it teems with young people. On market days the cobblestone square surrounding the cathedral is colorful with vendors of flowers and vegetables.

The Black Forest is not exactly undiscovered territory. According to the tourist office in Freiburg, more than 4 million people visit the area each year. Most are Germans who blaze down the autobahn from Frankfurt or Munich and other metropolitan areas for a day or a weekend. About 10% are foreigners, primarily Dutch and Belgians. Only a few are Americans.

For many visitors, the forest is a dark blur seen from a car speeding along the north-south High Road. But the best parts of the forest are accessible only on foot. Here there is serenity, there is a cathedral-like peacefulness, and the incredible stillness.

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GUIDEBOOK: Black Forest Trails

Getting there: Fly nonstop daily from LAX to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, Delta and United; nonstop three days a week on Air New Zealand; direct or connecting service on American, Air France, British Air, Continental, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, Northwest, United and USAir. Restricted, round-trip fares begin at about $835, including taxes. Auto travel is the best way to visit the Black Forest; all major car rental companies have offices at Frankfurt airport, which is about 175 miles from the start of Wunderhiking in Triberg. Wunderhiking will make a pickup at Frankfurt airport for a fee of $300 one way.

The tour: Eight hotels are connected by one-day hikes in a circular route, each section ranging from 10 to 17 miles. Most hikers decide on either a four-, six- or eight-night stay. Price of the tour includes nightly accommodations in a first-class country inn, breakfast, and a three-course dinner, plus transfer of luggage from one inn to another. Cost per person, for a four-night tour, $360; six-night tour, $520; eight-night, $685. Single supplement is $15 per day.

Where to stay: Each of the inns of the Wunderhiking tour is delightful, the cuisine excellent.

Of non-tour lodgings, in Frankfurt across the river from downtown, the Dorint (Hahnstrasse 9, tel. 011-49-69-663060, fax 011-49-69-663-06600) is a stylish hotel; $195 double. In Freiberg, the Freiberg Dorint (at Bismarckallee/Sendanstrasse, 79098 Freiburg, tel. 011-49-761-38890, fax 011-49-761-3889100) is $175 double.

For more information: Contact Wandern Ohne Gepack, Postfach 1423, 78094 Triberg/Schwarzwald; tel. 011-49-7722-860249, fax 011-49-7722-860290. Or German National Tourist Office, 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 750, Los Angeles 90025; tel. (310) 575-9799, fax (310) 575-1565.

--P.Z.