Hiking tour around the Spiegeltal valley. The Zellerfelder Kunstgraben ditch was especially important for mining in Zellerfeld.
The water transport ditches in the Upper Harz are true masterpieces of water engineering. You can see this particularly well on this 12 km circuit along the Zellerfelder Kunstgraben. The walls of natural stone, small bridges and stone arches show how much effort the miners put into building the ditches.
Water was very valuable for mining in the Harz. The water wheels at the mines were needed, for example, to hoist the extracted ore to the surface. This required a lot of water. The water needed to be transported to the mines. There always needed to be enough water, even when there was little or no rain.
The mines in Zellerfeld were high up on the hills. Therefore the water needed to be brought to the mines from even higher areas. These higher areas were far away. So the ditch goes a long way through the Harz. The walk passes ponds as well as stony and dangerous places in the water, and even a waterfall.
