Urwaldsteig

Just a quick post about a little trip that I did last weekend. It will be manly pictures. The next installment about Vålådalen will follow sometime soon. I promise.

Sometime ago I read in Op Pad Magazine an article about the Urwaldsteig in Germany. The magazine called it a Norwegian fjord just a couple hours away. Being a scandianiava freak I could not resist it. So last friday I took the afternoon off and went for it.



The Urwaldsteig is about 68 km long and runs around the artificial lake (the Edersee) . The article described it as a 6 day walk but I thought 2 and a bit must be possible if I go as light as possible and if I supercharged my days. I didn't make a gear list, maybe I will do that but when I put my bag on the scale it did weight about 5,1 kg's that included every thing.

So Friday afternoon I left work early and drove to Waldeck. There I parked the car met a friend and took some last liquid carbohydrates. After the beer disappeared, around seven we went out to find the track.



After walking fore two hours the sun set and we went looking for a place to spend the night, a place with a view.



The next day I woke up at sunrise made some breakfast and relaxed, we left at nineish. My friend went for the car the short way and I went for the car the long way.



The route take you along side the lake and sometimes there are some Norwegain features like cairns (steenmannetjes)



But it was mainly beech forests. I'm affaird the term like a Norwegian Fjord was a bit too much honour for the Urwaldsteig.

It was quite strange to hike alone; I never did that abroad and never really went solo for more than a daytrip.



During the day it didn't really matter, you must pay a little bit more attention on your navigation, I did make two mistakes and it costed me two hours. But when you are alone and illegal in the forest at night it is quite different. Your mind starts to play games with you. To be honest sometime I thought to see flashlights and heard strange noises. It was probably the moon and some animal sounds that I couldn't place but still it was quite nerve-racking and it is hard to keep cool. It is than quite hard to get a good night sleep. But after quite a good night sleep given the circumstances I got awaken by my alarm clock at 6.30. After walking half an hour I stopped any eat my breakfast.

I didn't pay enough attention on my water supply and as a result of that I only had one litre of water from Saturday four o clock until Sunday noon and went the day time temperatures are around 30 degrees Celsius it is fare from ideal. But by skipping dinner I managed it. But it is a thing I can’t recommend. There are streams but they are very small and I didn't trust them even I carried some purification tablets. Lesson learned for the next time, buy a better map one that shows springs and maybe carry some extra water. Another point was that the trail runs many through forests, so you can't refill your bottles in village or at people’s homes. The two cans of coke that I had in my car never tasted better!



Things that I learned:

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself” FDR

Don't walk 68km in your new shoes, the first 50km are oke but the last 18km will be killing and the blisters aren't a nice souvenir.

Don't thrust magazines!

Take enough water!

And covering 68 KM on an the German Autobahn will take less than 25 minutes.

Drei Waldkönigen.

Last weekend two friends and me went to Waldkönigen, a small village near Daun in the Eifel. Just for a weekend, hiking, bush crafting being out and especially just getting a way from day to day life.

The plan? There wasn't one just taking the map, walk look on the map and walk for a bit more. East, South, North, West, going left near the Totenmaar and going right near the big lava pile. And running away from the open-cast that was raping the landscape.

After a day of rambling we where looking for a nice place to spend the night. We found a piece of pine forest near a spring. Well away from the forest roads. We made our camp behind the root ball of a Scottish pine, we used some dead lying wood to screen of our campsite.



After we made camp I used my axe to take down a dead standing pine for fire wood. Because everything on the floor was to wet to burn. I finally bought an axe and I quite happy with it, is a Husqvarna all-round axe. You can compare it size wise with a Gransfors Forrest axe, only its costs half. I don't know much about axes but some that knows more about it has done a review here. The only thing I didn't realize when I ordered the Husqvarna was that is was so big and heavy. The first 45 cm fits nicely in my backpack but then there are still sticking 15 cm out. And people give you quite strange looks if your are walking trough town with an axe on your pack. And don't get me started if you will take it in public transport.



After we completed our campsite its was time to light the fire and made dinner. We also used all are water so we needed to boil the water before we could safely drink it. After we filled all our bottles I went to bed, the night before I had a party and slept only for three hours. It was the first night that I used my new tarp, the backpackinglight.co.uk solo tarp that I got from Thomas. The tarp is a prefect size solo tarp and it's a lot lighter than my old builder's tarp that I used before. So thank you very much Thomas!



After a good night sleep we woke up by the barking of a deer. A very nice way to wake up. Once we broke up camp we cleaned the campsite and you couldn't tell we where ever there. After leaving the camp site we walked for 5 minutes and then we had breakfast. So if a Forrester would ask we where just some ramblers who got up very early and we started this morning in the neighbouring village.

When we finished our breakfast we where going for the long way home. On our way back we came a cross some nice caves, maybe next time we will sleep over there.



Maybe next time.....