Sentier des Roches, Alpine hiking trail in Vosges Mountains, France

Sentier des Roches runs about 3 km from the Col de la Schlucht (1139 m) to the Krappenfels (980 m) above the Schluchtkessel cirque. The packed dirt and stone path climbs between blocky granite faces, with a metal cable handrail fixed to the rock by brackets on one side and a drop beside low vegetation on the other. Wire ropes, iron railings, ladders and footbridges secure the steep passages, and one section is cut straight through the rock.

Heinrich Strohmeyer, forestry official and president of the Munster Club Vosgien, proposed the trail in 1910 to link the Col de la Schlucht with the Frankenthal. Work began in July 1910 with about forty volunteers and the Scandella firm, which used dynamite in the rock; it was finished in summer 1911 and inaugurated on 6 August 1911. The cost reached 6,000 marks, and in 1912 the club named it Strohmeyerpfad.

The trail's name changed with politics: inaugurated in 1911 as the Strohmeyerpfad after forester Heinrich Strohmeyer, it was renamed Sentier des Roches after the First World War, and its centenary in 2011 brought back the original name. The blue rectangle of the GR 531 marks the route, and the French army still uses it for training marches.

The trail requires solid footing and a comfortable head for heights, particularly on steep sections secured with metal cables. Best conditions for walking are from May through October when the ground is dry.

At one point the trail was cut directly through a rock face, so hikers pass through a short gap blasted into the stone rather than a natural cave. The work was done in 1910–1911 by the Scandella firm, which used dynamite on the hardest passages. The route is about 3 km long and draws roughly 40,000 hikers a year.