Today we did another hike in Saxon Switzerland mountains (Sächsische Schweiz) just less than one hour drive from Dresden. Together with the Bohemian Switzerland (Böhmische Schweiz), the area belongs to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains (Elbsandsteingebirge) and it represents the preferred weekend destination for most nature-lovers from Dresden and surroundings (see also my previous post about the Sächsische Schweiz). This time the sandstone mountains offered me a very nice surprise: a weathered sandstone outcrop (photo below) exposing sands of several colors and patches.

To my excitement I could collect not less than 10 (ten) different sands from only one single location!!! I couldn’t wait to take a quick snapshot and share it with you, although the sand must be now dried before filling the vials (some samples are still wet).

Perhaps shall I add here that all samples (about 10 ml each) have been collected from the loose material fallen on the ground without any disturbance of the original sandstone rock.

Lying at just about 30 km away from my hometown Dresden, the Elbe Sandstone Mountains are an amazing touristic destination for this part of Germany. Their name (in German Elbsandsteingebirge) comes from the river Elbe breaking through sandstone peaks on its way from Czech Republic to the Northern Germany. The part of the mountains situated on German territory is called Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland), a name given by two enthusiastic romantic painters fascinated by this magic landscape.

The formation of Elbe Sandstone Mountains started some million years ago, when a sea was covering the whole region. Sand and seashells transported from the neighbor Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) successively deposited on the sea bottom and got exposed when the sea water vanished away. Continuously exposed to erosion, layers made of quartz sand and clay formed the peaks that can be seen today between Pirna (the town where I work) and after the border with Czech Republic.

At the first look the mountains have a grayish color given by the aggressive meteorological conditions but studying them closer, one can see a wonderful palette of beautiful colors, varying from very bright nuances to almost pitch black. In many places, the eroded rocks are surrounded by pure quartz sands just laying on the ground, almost inviting to be collected. And this is what I did each time we hiked along the old paths: one sample from here, another one from there, trying not to disturb the million years old spirit of the mountains. This resulted in a nice bunch of samples from various well known locations among the Elbsandsteingebirge lovers: Königstein, Pfafenstein, Lilienstein, Kaiserkrone etc.

By the time of writing this article, I had 20 different sand samples from Sächsische Schweiz in my collection but the number will certainly grow during the incoming period. By regional train, it takes only half an hour from my place to get there and we plan at least a trip per week. My aim is to succeed fully representing the whole sandstone area and this is one of the sub-projects of my Sand Atlas album.