Hiking from Unterbarmen to Barmen!

So, today’s hike, from Unterbarmen to Barmen. There’s a phrase that I always put in the couch surfing events, that it takes place anyway, regardless of the weather. So I always recommend everyone to check the weather forecast themselves. And today, they were predicting snow storm. And not quite surprisingly, they were right. And quite surprisingly, there were still people joining the event.

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Usually, Wuppertal gets a bit more snow than Düsseldorf. And since it was already snowing a lot in Düsseldorf, it was more or less expected that Wuppertal would be white. And it was REALLY white when we arrived there.

It was some weeks ago that I came here with my bicycle to check out the trail. It was particularly important to do so, because there was no hiking path at all. It was a rather sunny day and it was comfortable to cycle through the forest. The situation drastically changed with the snow. It looked like we had to create our own way to go. Yet it was a great view everywhere, completely white.

I thought it was already difficult to go through the forest. In reality, we were actually spared of the snow storm that covered the entire region in this short period of time. We found it out when we were out in the field. The elegance of holding an umbrella, which was my style today, was completely gone. With snow coming from each direction it anyway did not make so much sense, but also the wind was simply too strong for any umbrella. We had to move quickly in the snow, which was by the time already half a meter high. The art of going uphill in this situation was something we had to learn in this moment.

There was hardly a day where I was so happy to find a Burger King as today. We stormed into the store, where everyone was clearly staring at us. Well, that’s what I would also have done if I saw a group of Yetis completely covered in snow. Even though they apparently were not allowed to receive tips, I still found it appropriate to express my gratitude towards the waiters there for working on such a day and cleaning it up the floor, which was like a puddle by the time the snow was more or less gone from our jackets.

Even though the hike itself was relatively short, we had hardly energy to go back to any train station. However, the whole local transport was suspended. Fortunately, the snow storm stopped while we were at Burger King. So with a little bit of energy remaining, we started walking to the train station.

The weird thing about today’s weather was the relatively high temperature, which in the end saved us from the already wet trousers. After walking for about half an hour after Burger King, we were warmed up. Nevertheless, the energy we had already spent in the first half was just simply too much to be particularly motivated to walk.

Initially, we planned to go to the Christmas market of Wuppertal, but apparently everyone just wanted to go back home after the hike. The snow had stopped a while ago, so we thought it should not be a problem for the train anymore, only to find out that we were simply wrong. There was essentially no train going from Wuppertal to Düsseldorf. The only ones were going over Dortmund or Solingen, an extremely stupid choice we had to avoid. Anyway, that’s how the German railway works. We decided to go at least up to the main station of Wuppertal by the floating train/skyline, which is a touristic attraction of Wuppertal. I would have never thought that we would ever “have” to use this thing…

By the time we arrived at the main station, the trains started to work again. We made it back home, with quite some delay.

I often talk about the very first hike, which took place while snowing. Today’s hike was of a completely different dimension. It was certainly one of those legendary hikes that we’ll talk about in the future as well. I’m proud of everyone who accomplished today’s hike.