🏛️ Lieu
Patrimoine & Culture
Colline du Strangenberg
📍 Westhalten, Haut-Rhin
· 68250 Westhalten
À propos
The Strangenberg is part of the Guebwiller fault field. The faults delimit a series of compartments forming either depressions such as the Wintzfelden - Osenbach depressions or sub-Vosgean hills of sandstone or limestone nature.
The geographical layout of the Strangenberg explains its climate. Moisture-laden westerly winds condense into rain on the high reliefs of the Vosges, and when they penetrate into the sunnier part of the hills, the residual moisture dissipates. This explains the huge difference in rainfall between the Haute Vosges and Westhalten, where it rains four times less, an average of 500 mm/year. It should be noted that the climate of the Hautes-Vosges is of the Atlantic type (maximum rainfall in winter). It changes to become, 25 km further on, in Westhalten, semi-continental, with maximum rain in summer in the form of thunderstorms. These thunderstorms, sometimes catastrophic for the earth they carry away, on the other hand, temporarily rectify the too great drought of this limestone hill.
These geographical, geological and climatic characteristics favour the appearance of a remarkable flora. The flora of the vines, very rich and varied, is conditioned by the different ways in which the vines are cultivated, but is increasingly threatened. The northern slopes of the hillside, more exposed to bad weather and a more humid microclimate, are in the form of well-closed but heterogeneous bocages. On the western and eastern slopes there is a dry, steppe-like bocage, whose flora sometimes takes refuge on scree and scree slopes. The southern slopes are subject to intense sunshine. These abrupt grounds on skeletal ground have a weak vegetable cover strewn with species physiologically adapted to heliothermic conditions and very intense drought. Finally, the steppe moorland consisting of a short grassland occupies the tops of the limestone hills surrounding Westhalten.
For more information, the booklet of the Westhalten Botanical and Wine Trail is on sale at the Tourist Office in Rouffach.
The geographical layout of the Strangenberg explains its climate. Moisture-laden westerly winds condense into rain on the high reliefs of the Vosges, and when they penetrate into the sunnier part of the hills, the residual moisture dissipates. This explains the huge difference in rainfall between the Haute Vosges and Westhalten, where it rains four times less, an average of 500 mm/year. It should be noted that the climate of the Hautes-Vosges is of the Atlantic type (maximum rainfall in winter). It changes to become, 25 km further on, in Westhalten, semi-continental, with maximum rain in summer in the form of thunderstorms. These thunderstorms, sometimes catastrophic for the earth they carry away, on the other hand, temporarily rectify the too great drought of this limestone hill.
These geographical, geological and climatic characteristics favour the appearance of a remarkable flora. The flora of the vines, very rich and varied, is conditioned by the different ways in which the vines are cultivated, but is increasingly threatened. The northern slopes of the hillside, more exposed to bad weather and a more humid microclimate, are in the form of well-closed but heterogeneous bocages. On the western and eastern slopes there is a dry, steppe-like bocage, whose flora sometimes takes refuge on scree and scree slopes. The southern slopes are subject to intense sunshine. These abrupt grounds on skeletal ground have a weak vegetable cover strewn with species physiologically adapted to heliothermic conditions and very intense drought. Finally, the steppe moorland consisting of a short grassland occupies the tops of the limestone hills surrounding Westhalten.
For more information, the booklet of the Westhalten Botanical and Wine Trail is on sale at the Tourist Office in Rouffach.