Hiking in the Harz

Two weekends ago (so much for me being caught up with this) I ended up going hiking and camping in the Harz mountains. It was kind of by accident, in that I was going to go visit Cologne, but my ride fell through. At what was basically the last possible moment, a friend of mine invited me to hiking with him and some other people. Definitely proof that fate sometimes works in your favor. I feel like I had a much better time than I would have had in Cologne. We will have to see until I go there to actually know for sure. Judging from the amount of pictures that I took on this trip vs. the other trips I have taken, it definitely wins. One of the problems of hiking that canoeing does not have. Your hands are always free, so you take a lot of pictures.

We started out by driving to Wernigerode to buy ourselves a map of the Hiking trails. After that, we went to Ilsenburg, planned our attack, and set off into the woods. We hiked for a while, went to the Ecker Dam and its respective lake, found a hut (they have triangular huts where you can stop and rest,) ate supper, dried off, and went to bed. Also staying within the area, were a group of students from Bielefeld. It was definitely a stroke of luck that we found other students in the area. The majority of hikers and bikers were somewhere about early middle age, the average restaurant goer was about 65 or 70 (I assume that they took the train,) and there were some other adults that has their kids along, but there was almost no one our age.

The next morning, I was the first one up, so I wondered around a little bit and took a bunch of pictures of the lake. After that we climbed The Brocken. At 3,743ft., it is the tallest point in northern Germany. For comparison, Eagle Mountain is 2,301ft. It is kind of weird to climb up it, because everything around you is fairly natural until you get up to the top. There is a train that goes up to the top of it, where there is a museum, some restaurants, a train station and a giant antenna.

It was about 43° when we were at the summit, so we grabbed some warm and expensive food at a restaurant and then continued on our journey back towards Ilsenburg and the car. After being in the city for so long, it was nice to get out to the wilderness again. Also, because Magdeburg is along a river, everything around it is flat for miles around, making it kind of boring after a while. Here are the photos, as promised.







That is the steam from the train from the beginning of our journey