Hiking from Gevelsberg to Hagen!

Whatever the reason is, December sees a really cold week. This year, it was very much this week. Not as cold as last year, but still significantly colder than last week. At least today, however, it did not rain, even though the weather could have been as nice as yesterday, when the sun was shining.

If you have hiked with me a few times you might already know that we don’t quite follow any established hiking path anymore. I make the paths according to my feeling, which I thought was only random. At least that was what I was telling everyone. I realized actually it is quite as random as I thought, when Thomas made a trail himself, since he followed my advice and made one randomly. Today’s hike was based on his paths, although I still changed quite some routes to make it significantly easier.

Gevelsberg lies along the line connecting Wuppertal and Hagen, which sees a hill range along the way. We went up immediately after we arrived at the train station and crossed the narrow passage of streets. Up, like quite significantly. Maybe because of the weather, not many people joined us for the first time, and probably it was okay like this, as it might have ended up the last hike for many people, which was my impression when the climbing and descending came one after another. There was one particular descent at one point (before the break, because there was another one that followed towards the end), that made everyone suffer quite a lot.

It was way before the break people started asking when we were having a break. When we were having a break, it was snowy outside. Most of people got inside. I was stupid enough to bring some stuff to eat. After I finished my lunch with trembling fingers, I got inside, got a piece of cake and hot coffee. So great that there’s this place, Hinnenwiese, in the middle of nowhere. The staff looked grumpy at the beginning, but started chatting with us at some point, and obviously recognized us at some point (because we’ve actually already been there at the beginning of this year). Germans are often like this. At the beginning they look grumpy, but it’s just their culture. A mixture of awkwardness and wariness, but you can get in touch with them in the end.

From the break on, it was my route. It got much easier and there was little paved road, with a nice tower at the end. However, the story did not end in a happy way. The last descent appeared almost like a trap, while it was getting rapidly dark at the same time. Obviously, when we finished this part, we were not as many as at the tower.

Last Christmas market this year, in Hagen. Only two weeks ago we had the first Christmas market of the year and now it’s over. It feels like it was the shortest Christmas season I’ve seen so far. The Christmas market in Hagen has a good size. In cities like Oberhausen or Düsseldorf, where the city itself is very large or the Christmas market is really famous, it is a mere chaos, but in a relatively small city like Hagen, you can have a calmer place to enjoy Glühwein with other people.

And so was the last hike of the year. So many beautiful memories over the year. I can only look forward to the future sessions. Thank you all for joining us so many times and see you next year!

Today’s trail can be downloaded from this link (kml-format) or this link (gpx-format)