Under blue skies and sunshine, this mountain offers a completely absurd sight from the train window. With its brilliant white color, it looks like a snow-covered Alpine glacier that has wandered into the middle of a green hilly landscape.
If you’ve ever wondered what the deal is with this mountain (or just thought the cover photo was wild—that’s fine too), we’ll tell you everything about Monte Kali in Heringen (Werra) right here.
Monte Kali in Heringen on the Werra: An industrial monument that is still growing
Monte Kali is an artificially constructed mountain made of rock salt that reaches a height of about 530 meters above sea level (an impressive 200 to 250 meters above the surrounding terrain). It covers an area of nearly 100 hectares—about 140 soccer fields!
And because the mountain serves as a waste dump for the potash plant in Wintershall, it continues to grow steadily. Every day, a 1.5-kilometer-long conveyor belt transports 20,000 tons (!) of new salt to the summit. Today, the salt giant consists of well over 200 million tons of material. After all, the mountain has been around for 53 years!
This has caused problems: When it rains, the water washes the salt out of the pile. This has turned the Werra into a highly saline river. In addition, strong winds can blow fine salt dust off the mountain, which repeatedly causes problems in the neighborhood.
“Monte Kali” or “Monte Table Salt”?
The name “Monte Kali” isn’t actually correct. The mountain consists of about 96% pure sodium chloride —in other words, ordinary table salt. The potassium that gives it its name, which is used for fertilizer, was filtered out at the plant. Still, “Monte Kali” is just catchier than “Monte Table Salt” …
Absolutely nothing grows on the actual slag heap. The salt concentration is so high that no plants can survive there. The mountain is not a desert oasis, but rather an oasis in the desert amidst the green Hessian landscape.
Theoretically, you could use the mountain to salt your breakfast. However, we don’t recommend it, because the salt is contaminated and you’d probably end up with rocks in your coffee.
Your “Alpine tour” with a summit cross in Hesse!
Monte Kali is a popular destination. If you’re ever in the area, you can book a guided tour. Here, you’ll hike across the crunching surface, which feels like creaking snow or coarse sand under your shoes. A lunar landscape in brilliant white—you’d usually only find something this surreal at Ikono in Berlin!
First things first: As befits a real mountain, a summit cross awaits you at the top of Monte Kali! On a clear day, you have a great view from here of the Rhön, the Thuringian Forest, the “Knüll” (the Knüll Mountains), and the surrounding Hessian countryside.
So if you’re on the ICE from Berlin to Frankfurt (or vice versa), look out the window between Eisenach and Fulda ! If you look out the window to the left [toward Frankfurt] or to the right [ toward Berlin], you can spot this absolute giant!
