Hiking around Hilchenbach

There was a huge turn this week. Last week it looked like we came into the summer. This week the temperature plummeted and yesterday it started snowing. How’s possible that things evolve so fast within a week?

Download kml / gpx

Anyway, I wasn’t really surprised when I saw hardly anyone for today’s hike, taking place near Siegen, also because the train journey was to take 2h30. On the other hand, some people joined because it snowed, like Rohith. Well, looking out of the window on the way from Düsseldorf to Hagen, I could clearly see that the amount of snow was growing and growing, as we were going deep into the mountains.

In total, we were four people. At some point during corona I stopped caring about the number of participants, so I can’t really remember whether we have been such a small group recently, but it’s certainly true that we are rarely so few in this group.

The train station was totally covered with snow. Who would have imagined last week that we’d see such a scene?

From Hilchenbach, we went directly into the mountain. There was no snow in the street at the beginning, but as soon as we left the city we were going through snow. Throughout the day, there was hardly a moment we didn’t walk on snow.

It might have been a great thing here in the Sauerland, because we know that many places in this area were damaged in the last years and there are a lot of dead trees on the way. Since the ground was covered with snow, we could hardly see the effect.

I was actually not prepared for this weather at all; I was carrying my normal jeans and simple hiking shoes. Fortunately, the snow was never too high and it was also still very dry, so that I didn’t really get wet anywhere. For the same reason, it also didn’t take much time to walk the track today.

There was a restaurant on the way, Ginsburg, where we had a break. It was really nice to be inside on such a cold day. The food was frankly horrible, but the staff were really nice and it was super cozy.

Right after the break, there was a fortress on the way. We didn’t explore the area much, but there was apparently some performance there, and you can also go up the tower (for 1€ though).

It was cloudy the whole day, but there was a little bit of sunshine towards the end. We were going from one hill to another, enjoying the great view over the barren, but totally snowy hills of the Sauerland, which, again, I’m sure would have been totally ugly if there wasn’t snow.

As there was no ice cream parlour, I went to REWE and got an ice cream, in the hope to get also flour and oil at the same time. Oil was there, but flour wasn’t. History is repeating.