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Along the forest and hiking trail, on the slope gently descending to the northeast, flat round, but overgrown places can be discerned. On a few hundred meters, at least nine of them are lined up here.
They are old sites of charcoal or maybe pitch kilns which partly were used until the beginning of the 20th century. In some places you can still see the dark discoloration of the ground from the charcoal. These sites once belonged to the forest of Eger, and after 1862, when it had become Bavarian according to the Vienna State Treaty, to the estate of Ottengrün. Because of their large number it can be assumed that the charcoal or pitch kilns on the various places were alternately operated. As the estate of Ottengrün also owned the blast furnaces and hammer mills around Ernestgrün it is imaginable that charcoal for ore processing was produced here already from the 14th century on. Everywhere around here, and above all in the area of the former forest of Eger, you can find many more of such places. On the Birkenberg mountain, those places also show a close connection to an old form of cultivation.
Also the road along which these old sites lie is old. It once was the connecting road between the villages Wondreb and Schachten and branched off from the road to Ottengrün at the former “Egerer Waldhäusl”. Thus, the charcoal and pitch could be removed efficiently.
Charcoal burning is one of the oldest craftsmen’s techniques of mankind, but nearly extinct in Germany today.