Signal de Botrange

Where is Signal de Botrange?

Signal de Botrange is part of the High Fens, Ardennes.

You will find it in: Belgium.

Summit: 50.502° N, 6.093° E

The story behind it

The High Fens are a wide, wet plateau where rain has been feeding a thick blanket of peat for thousands of years, and Signal de Botrange sits right in the middle of it. The summit feels more like a windy moor than a mountain, so wooden walkways were laid across the soft ground to keep hikers dry and the moss unharmed. In summer cotton grass waves in the wind, and in winter the snow often stays long enough for cross-country skiers to glide between the dark spruce trees. Because the true top is only a gentle swelling of the ground, a small stone stairway was added beside it, so that visitors can stand at the round number of 700 metres. The name recalls an old survey marker, a signal that helped mapmakers measure this corner of Belgium, where fog can swallow the whole plateau in a few minutes.

Find it on the globe

Signal de Botrange is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.