We start our hike at a (paid) car park at the Schierker Stein above Schierke. The wide footpath first runs parallel to the road, downhill towards Schierke.
After a few hundred metres we cross the road and follow the signs to Schierke station. The path first climbs steeply to the station of the Brocken narrow-gauge railway.
We cross the tracks and walk to the Feuersteinklippen, which are only a few hundred metres from the station. Here there is a commemorative plaque recalling the visit of Goethe, who stayed here in 1784. The Feuersteinklippen are open for climbing, and you often get the chance to watch the “alpinists” in action. A small, narrow path leads between the crags back to a wide forest road.
We follow it for a while and then turn onto the narrow, briskly climbing Pfarrstieg towards the Ahrendsklint (822 m). The Ahrendsklint is a rock formation you can climb onto, offering a fine view in almost every direction. There is also a stamp point for the Harzer Wandernadel here.
The narrow path continues uphill a little further and then meets a wide forest road, which leads us to the ruins of an old glassworks (Jacobsbruch). We continue on wide forest roads to the Spinne, a “meeting point” of numerous hiking trails and forest roads. We follow the path heading steadily downhill to the south-east, which crosses the tracks of the Brocken railway again after a few hundred metres. We keep following the path and pass along the Feuersteinwiesen meadows, across which the view extends far over the eastern Harz plateau. At the end of the path we reach the road; after crossing it we are back at our starting point, the car park at the Schierker Stein.
