A hike through Germany: Goldsteig

Ilz valley

The Goldsteig consists of two branches: The Northern branch traverses the crest of the Bavarian forest parallel to the German / Czech border and I had hiked that section already in 2008 - albeit in much worse weather. So this time I opted for the Southern branch which stays a bit lower. Both branches end in Passau. The Southern Branch turned out to be another positive surprise: Although it traveses a very nice and heavily forested landscape there are hardly any tourists - which is a stark contrast to the Northern branch, which is a major German holiday destination. The two major nature highlights along the Southern branch are the Hoellbachtal, a "wilderness" creek valley (well, as much wilderness as you will get in Germany) and the valley of the Ilz. Especially Ilz valley which you follow for almost a day is very pretty: No roads are along the valley, only an abandonded railway line and literally 100s of joggers as this area is already very close to Passau.

Totenbretter

Another interesting cultural thing can be seen along the trail: Totenbretter (Boards for the dead). In former times the dead were laid out on wooden boards before their burial. In this region of Germany the boards were not buried with the dead but erected as a memorial for the deceased. To my big surprise this is still a living tradition as many of the boards I saw dated only a couple of years back. Along the trail you can also see a weird sculpture: a wooden hand! This hand was carved and donated by a regional artist who got lost in snow storm. Already afraid of dying lost in the cold a hand appeared out of heaven and pointed in the direction of the next village which he then found without any problem and was saved.

The wooden hand

I hope I was saved, too as I eventually got so worried about Lyme Disease that I decided to consult a doctor. This turned out to be a bit difficult as you pass through a lot of villages on the Goldsteig, but most of them are so small that there is no doctor. In St Englmar I found a GP - a real old fashioned country doctor who turned out to be an Alaska aficionado. So he was very sympathetic when I told him about my upcoming Yukon adventure and my fear of Lyme Disease. He prescribed antibiotics - which led to the next problem: There was no pharmacy in St Englmar and none for the next 3 days along the trail either. So much for Germany being very populated and commercialized. The doctor also took care of my ear which had been hurting for a while. He decided to take out the ear wax for which procedure he produced a huge metal syringe. When I told him that this thing looked rather brutal he replied: "It not only looks brutal - it is brutal. Now I will show you how country doctors deal with these problems..." As you can see he had a rather black sense of humour but he managed to get my ear wax out painlessly....

Goldsteig

I am back from the Goldsteig - and of course, everything went quite different than I thought... The first few days I had fine weather: The trail is nice and I liked to be hiking again instead of cycling. It was great to be outdoor again. But then the weather changed dramatically: It started to rain and the temperature dropped - unfortunately exactly then when I was at the highest section of the trail. I know that this sounds like a constant weather report, but weather can make or break a trip. But to look at the positive side of it, it was a good test for my AT equipment and unfortunately some of it failed completely:

a) It is an absolutely stupid idea to go hiking in rough terrain and high winds with a poncho: I nearly tripped over my poncho several times and at the end of the day I was usually soaked. I will change to rain jacket and pants for the AT.

b) My brand new titanium SnowPeak stove developped a compatibility problem with my gas cannister for a reason completely unknown to me. Luckily it was still working somewhat, but it took my 15 minutes to bring 2 cups of water to a boil. That's ridiculous - even HEET it faster. I will change back to my hated PocketRocket, that failed in the middle of the CDT because its thread wore out... maybe I should go for an alcohol stove, but I seem to be too stupid for that, too.

c) My new WM Summerlight sleeping bag is not made for a climate like this - I was freezing my ass off every night despite using a VPL. I will take the WM Ultralight for the AT.

Wooden chapel

I also had to face another challenge: Where to recharge my new Nokia cell phone/camera/radio/mp3player? The funniest place for that was at a cemetary at the "Aussegnungshalle" - this is a hall where they show the dead in their coffins before they are buried. I must admit that I felt pretty stupid sitting in a cemetary in front of this hall having a lunch break and waiting for my Nokia to recharge. I could not believe that there were so many people looking at the dead - and my Nokia and then I had to explain my story...

And I met another interesting long distance hiker: A female social worker accompanying a "problem" girl on a 6-week hike through Germany as a measure for building her self esteem. It reminded me a lot of the drug kids that are doing trail maintenance in the US...

And then the funniest place where I slept: On an especially nasty day I was climbing the Arber (the highest mountain on the Goldsteig with some 1.500 m) and wanted to stay in a hut which I could not find in the fog. Therefore I ended up sleeping at a skilift in front of the toilets which was the most wind sheltered place around. In the morning I realised that the hut was just 100 meters away - but the fog had been too thick to see it. Unfortunately the toilets were locked, so the location was not particularly helpful in the obvious respect. 

Most frustrating experience: When I turned up at a hut shortly before sunset and being almost hypothermic I was nearly turned away because they didn't want to take credit cards - cash only! Luckily I had just enough cash left for staying overnight, but I could not buy anything to eat. These huts are more like restaurants or hotels rather than mountain huts. That night I was so cold that I took 2 hours in bed with my sleeping bag AND a warm blanket before I could stop shivering.

But all together I liked the Goldsteig: It was tougher than I had expected due to the bad weather but offered good hiking. And I must admit that I probably just underestimated it by arrogantly assumed that for an accomplished PCT and CDT thruhiker a German forest would be a piece of cake. Well, the German forest kicked my ass and humbled me a bit.

Back in Berlin

On the Goldsteig

I arrived back in Berlin in some sort of shock worried about the numbness in my hands and when that would finally get better. A visit at a orthopaedic specialist did not improve my mood: He suggested injections to reduce swelling and irritation of the Karpal tunnel and talked about surgery in case things would  not improve. I refused either and hope nature will take its course healing. I will not be cycling for about another 8 months and hopefully the problem will have resolved itself by then. I try to avoid cycling now and I am afraid to admit that I actually sort of hate the bike at the moment, but I do hope that this feeling will go away after a while, too.

After digesting my initial shock and visiting doctors I decided to go hiking again instead of cycling. I still have some time to kill before I fly to the US on May 26th and I didn't want to sit around here in Berlin doing nothing. So tomorrow I will head out and hike 10 days on the Goldsteig in Bayerischer Wald. This area is as much wilderness as we get in Germany. Lots of forest for stealth camping and even the weather forecast is ok. I have already packed all my stuff for the US, so I am ready to go when I come back from hiking. Let's see what happens this time to me...