Ems-Lutter trail – town, country and river hiking in the Teutoburg Forest

Start: Bushaltestelle Linzer Straße, Brackwede Destination: U-Bahn-Haltestelle Bahnhof, Brackwede For today's public holiday, not only did it have to be the longest route so far 🙂, but for the first time, a long-distance hiking trail again! 🙂🙂 And what fits better with Easter than the topic of Lutter? 😉 The path begins in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Brackwede. I don't know... I'll probably never understand long-distance hiking trails that simply start somewhere and end somewhere in the middle, just to secure their quality status. Would it have been so bad to mark the 50 m from the starting destination stop and (even worse), the measly 300 m to Brackwede station? What makes it a quality trail if I, as a hiker, first have to find the entrance point, but above all, the way to the train station and even worse, to the bus or subway myself? Unfortunately, a phenomenon that I have repeatedly encountered as an annoyance with the Teutoburger Wald-Verein, even with the Hermannshöhen. It's no different here: follow our certified trail, but figure out how to get there yourself. 🙄 However, the path itself is definitely worth walking! It is even one of the most positive surprises ever. No other hiking trail leads through the Lutter valley (except for the unmarked Jakobsweg). This gives the Ems-Lutter-Weg a unique selling point anyway, and without it, I would probably never have discovered this landscape. The natural Lutter valley vegetates somewhere between rather unsightly Brackwede and commercial areas. However, since this path was designed as a long-distance trail, you don't notice much of it and only see the very worthwhile sides of this valley, and they are impressive! The Lutter is a 25 km long river that flows into the Ems. Crossroads like "Kupferhammer I" or II still indicate today that the valley was not always so idyllic, but you can hardly tell that from the valley today. The Lutter flows idyllically, but also very quickly over its sandy riverbed, and the first hundred meters of the hiking trail are already wonderful: you follow the crystal-clear water up close to Niemöllers Mühle, which a club has restored. However, the mill wheel no longer turns. The mill race rushes impressively down a waterfall. Shortly thereafter, the path completely changes direction. This is done so skillfully in the terrain that you don't notice anything at all - just as you don't notice that you are sometimes walking less than 100 m from the already familiar path. I think that speaks very well for this trail! The Lutter increasingly recedes into the background as you hike through a dense, hilly forest. Hilly because sandy dunes have spread here, into which the Lutter has now eaten deeply. This is particularly noticeable shortly before its source, where the valley is particularly pronounced. Some ponds are also preserved here - not of natural origin, as they were needed to operate the mills and forges. In the final meters, the path leads again along the still wide Lutter to its nondescript destination in the Freibad parking lot. The source is not far away, but you have to walk to it yourself (completely incomprehensibly), as well as the way back to public transport to the start or home. By the way, the source of the Lutter is something very special: Not the one you can see here on the loud Ostwestfalendamm, because most of the water originates directly on the Bielefeld Pass next to the railway line, which is why the real Lutter source is now underground and artificially contained. However, even that is not uncommon, but the special feature dates back to 1492, when the Count of Ravensberg was looking for a way to provide the aspiring city of Bielefeld with more water. As mentioned: The Lutter source is located exactly at the pass height, and its water flows south (as Ems-Lutter) just like that. Much to the displeasure of the Marienfeld Monastery, the Count decided that this should not continue. He promptly had a ditch dug to divert part of the water directly at the source - the artificially created Weser-Lutter. Thus, the Lutter is a very special river today, which divides directly at its source and only reunites its water in the North Sea. However, the history of the Weser-Lutter will be told another time (and on the hiking trail of the same name). In any case, Bielefeld would probably not exist today, contrary to all rumors, if it weren't for the Weser-Lutter. In any case, the Ems-Lutter - the only real Lutter - was worth every single step! The only thing that annoyed me was the missing access path - especially annoying because the source and its history are simply omitted.

I was on the trail last fall. I couldn't take the lower bridge at the time because work was underway on it. Today I finally managed to show the trail to my husband.

Wonderful pleasure hike Very relaxing. Along the Ems-Lutter-Weg through the green spring valley.