Rothaar Mountains

The Rothaar Mountains, or Rothaar, is a low mountain range reaching heights of up to 843.1 m in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, Germany.It is believed that its name must once have been Rod-Hard-Gebirge, or "the cleared forest mountain range", as the range has nothing whatsoever to do with the colour red some 30 km to the southwest and drops off steeply towards the west, but much less sharply towards the east.The Rothaar is a narrow, banklike, mostly over 600 m high mountain chain forming geologically a large northeastern part of the Rhine Massif (Rheinisches Schiefergebirge). Since the land's elevation averages quite high, the mountains themselves, up to the 843.1 m-high Langenberg hardly stand out from each other.