South and central area and
Ritterstein No. 111 In the southern Palatine Forest, the German part of the
Wasgau, the Palatine Watershed begins on the
French border in the area of the Erlenkopf hill (473 m above
NHN), where it is a continuation of the watershed in the northern
Vosges. Always generally running from southwest to northeast it initially heads eastwards past
Eppenbrunn and
Pirmasens over the Großer Schiffelskopf (457 m) and reaches the region of
Gräfenstein Land. From there it runs up the
Hortenkopf (606 m) in the central
Frankenweide. Several kilometres it passes through the hamlet of
Johanniskreuz (470 m), one of the highest settlements in the Palatine Forest. The watershed then reaches the area west of
Waldleiningen in the Lower Frankenweide.
Northern area There are two options for the northern course of the Palatine Watershed, depending on whether the confluence of the
Nahe at
Bingen is counted as part of the Upper Rhine or is seen as belonging to the Middle Rhine. If the former is assumed, it runs south of the catchment area of the Nahe; if the latter, it runs to the east of it. . In the first, more usually accepted case, the watershed is identical with that of the Schwarzbach and its headstreams (especially the
Moosalb,
Rodalb,
Wallhalb and
Hornbach) with the Nahe tributary of the
Glan. The drainage divide runs from the Lower Frankenweide westwards through the Imperial Forest (the
Reichswald) past the
Großer Humberg (430 m) in the area of the Großer Hausberg (471 m) between
Kaiserslautern and
Landstuhl. On the
Sickingen Heights it runs close to its northern edge to the
Saarland border at
Homburg. In the more rarely postulated second case, the watershed runs from the Lower Frankenweide onwards in a northeasterly, later more northerly direction. In doing so, it separates the catchment area of the Nahe in the west, to which the
Lauter (locally Waldlauter),
Alsenz and
Appelbach belong, from the sources of the smaller, west Upper Rhine tributaries, namely the
Isenach,
Eckbach,
Eisbach and
Pfrimm. From the forest of
Stumpfwald in the northern Palatine Forest the watershed enters the
North Palatine Uplands, passing immediately west of the summit of the highest point in the Uplands, the
Donnersberg (686.5 m). North of
Kirchheimbolanden, near
Orbis (327 m), it leaves the Palatinate between the source of the
Selz, which flows into the Upper Rhine, and the upper reaches of the Nahe tributary, the
Wiesbach, and heads into the region of
Rheinhessen. == Elevations ==