One of my expat friends passed by one these white mountains in Germany. With her mobile phone, she took a photo to inquire about this phenomenal sight of a mountain.
At first, I had no idea either, as I had never seen this before. But I learned, in Germany, there are a few of these.
This is Kaliberg, also referred to as Monte Kali or Kalimanscharo in other locations. It is an artificial mountain, created by dumping its innards of potassium salt.
Kaliberg
This form of mining poses environmental hazards as nearby rivers are getting too salty. Additionally, each rainfall delivers more salt into the soil. Some worry about the quality of the drinking water as this is slowly getting contaminated as well.
The mining of this Kaliberg in the photo has been going on for 30 years and another 35 years of mining are expected.
Locations of these white mountains are:
* Kaliberg near Vacha (Widdershausen) – click here for a better image: Anywhere you want to go
* Bokeloh and Sehnde (both in the Hannover region),
* Kaliberg mine Neuhof-Ellers near the ICE- tracks in Neuhof (near Fulda, Hesse),
* near Zielitz in Saxony-Anhalt
* closed mine Kalimandscharo in Sollstedt.
I passed through one of these “Un-Zauberbergen” on our way up to Fulda. Thank you for the information. I hope you don’t mind that I left a link to your site on my Flickr picture:
BTW, I am a German-born American (mother was German). My wife and I returned to Germany after being away for 40 years. It has changed a lot in some ways (especially the cities). We teach English in China. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in beautiful Deutschland.
I neglected to add the specific link to the above comment. Here it is:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/asterisktom/29954907101/in/dateposted/
Take care,
Tom
Interesting to hear you are a German-born American, now living in China. Guess what – our German-American son is also living in China at the moment, attending Fudan University in Shanghai.
Germany is beautiful, I love it especially this time of year. Yes, cities change. Nature, such as our forests, vineyards, and corn fields do look the same. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your photos of the Kali Mountains!