Hiking from Wetter to Witten and Kirmes!

It is true that the Ruhr region is not an attractive area for hiking, but when it comes to the Ruhr river, it is not exactly true. Both sides of the Ruhr are somewhat hilly, and with an adequate amount of entertainment, it is usually pleasant to walk around there. The problem, on the other hand, is that we cannot reach every single place around this area. This is very much the case for Wetter and Witten, lying somewhere between Hagen and Essen. So far, we’ve managed only a few hikes in this area for this reason. But you might remember me saying how beautiful the area between Hagen and Essen is. And since there was a kirmes in Witten, I decided to make a relatively aggressive one, without really knowing whether it’s feasible or not.

Download kml / gpx

The beginning and the end of the trail were already known to us. The question was what comes in between. Until we had a break, we had some residential areas, but also a very nice mixture of forests and fields, even though in today’s scorching weather, we would have preferred to have more trees on the way. I felt a bit stupid to have carried long trousers today.

After experiencing the mistake in Hohenlimburg, I decided to have a safe place for the break and took Wengern, in which there were clearly a few restaurants. We found a small park in the shadow in the middle of this small town, where there was also a bar nearby. Today was like the appropriate day for the beginning of the summer.

Today’s total distance was nearly 18 km, which is actually quite a lot (and not surprisingly, komoot classified the trail as “difficult”). When we were in Wengern, which I thought was exactly in the middle, we didn’t really had the feeling that the trail was particularly long. Well, we had obviously not done one half yet, since the rest was clearly longer.

My limited choice of trail turned out to be actually quite good today. At one point, it looked like there was a closed gate, which was indeed closed to cars, but pedestrians could enter (although the fact that we could enter doesn’t really mean we were allowed to enter, but since there was no one, we’ll never know…). It was anyway kind of funny to go through the area which wasn’t meant for hiking.

And the second half was mostly in the forest. With the temperature still high, we were blessed to have this trail today.

So in total, it was indeed somewhat long (especially after the break), but I’d still claim it was a good one today. Besides, we could have really good ice creams in Witten. What more do you ask.

Oh not to forget: there are ticks in the forest, just as in many forests. Watch out! 🙂