Though he only recently rediscovered hiking within the last decade, Frank Meyer routinely covers many thousands of kilometers a year in Berlin and Brandenburg. In my interview with Frank, we cover everything from finding his way back to hiking to becoming a certified guide, creating new route ideas, and the virtual hiking community.
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Table of Contents
Interview with Frank Meyer: Why do you hike?
Was this interest always there from childhood, from family excursions? Or did you discover the joy of hiking later in life?
My parents hiked a lot in the 1970s and 80s. Even then we went on several hiking vacations together in the Alps (Styria and South Tirol) and as a child and early teenager I enjoyed it a lot. Also in my home region, near Trier and the Mosel, hiking was a common free time activity for the family, often with the then well-loved “Internationale Volkswanderungen” (IVV) or with the tours of the Eifelverein, a local hiking club.
Between puberty and “advanced” age there was a long hiking break for me and other sporting activities came to the forefront, like jogging or cycling. In just the last eight years I began to hike more actively, coming to over 100 tours per year dispersed widely around my current hometown of Berlin.
What do you love about hiking?
At the beginning of my “restart,” I saw the sporting ambition and attempted above all to cover distances quickly and talked about “speed hiking” when I was asked about what I was doing. Average speeds of 7 km/h were not seldom during this phase.
But I recognized quickly that this form of movement, in my opinion, was unjust towards the surrounding landscape and nature, because the focus was incorrectly placed. Since then, I see myself as a real enjoyment hiker, who tries to design routes, through meticulous planning, as attractive and as pleasant as possible.
When hiking, I especially like the experience of nature combined with the feeling of freedom and independence, which are strongly limited, for example, when cycling by the faster movement and the attachment to paths and their condition. The particular atmosphere through slower movement, for example through specific light conditions at different times of the year, can make a section of forest or a view of a lake that you have already experienced many times before seem new and different.
Chris’s favorite hikes in Brandenburg
Becoming a hiking guide
You are a DWV-Wanderführer and European Walk-Leader, as well as a certified Natur- und Landschaftsführer for the Naturpark Fläming-Havelland. What does that mean? What did you need to do for that?
About two years ago in the summer of 2020, I completed an approximately two week long, compact course. In this cohesive training, I learned theory and praxis of everything about the basics which are necessary in order to take groups of participants on safe, informative, entertaining, and inspiring hikes.
The topics in the area of hiking guide training comprise not only the obvious planning and orienteering, but also knowledge of correct gear, assessment of the weather, and behavior in dangerous situations. I also learned quite a bit about communication and leadership didactics, needed to confront aspects of law and insurance, and learned a lot about correct (self-)marketing and the necessary public relations.
In terms of nature and landscape guiding, it was about the general and local geology, ecology, cultural historical aspects, as well as basics of flora and fauna in the local context.
Creating new routes
Do you create new trails which get a marker? How does that work? What do you have to pay attention to when designing a new trail?
No, I do not create any new marked trails. Usually, this is connected to a lot of effort, voting, and high costs. You have to imagine, that the trail has to be clarified to every municipality along the way and a “veto” can be implemented at any time when local interests lead to complications. Another thing to think about is that the traffic liability law applies for every marked trail. This means that the trail must be regularly proofed for security and fallen trees must be cleared after storms.
Quite the opposite, I plea for the “virtualization” of the trail marker and a central database. Since most hikers are out and about with smartphones, I find the signs and markers to be superfluous and hardly of added value. With the money saved, other “hiking furniture” could be financed, such as benches, tables, and rest areas.
In the last years and this year, you are hiking along rivers in Brandenburg. How do you come up with such new ideas?
I actually ran out of ideas a bit, because in the last years I already hiked all of the long distance trails and all longer, connected official hiking trails in Brandenburg. With the bigger rivers like the Spree and Havel, I was particularly interested in the changes of the surroundings and the course of the water in its entirety. Unfortunately, I often had to use cycling paths along the rivers, but there were also always wonderful natural sections too.
For this year, I am again undertaking two smaller river projects. These will take me along the Schwarze Elster and the Neiße which flow through south Brandenburg, northern Saxony, and also a little bit into the Czech Republic.
How did Corona affect hiking?
How has Corona influenced hiking in Brandenburg?
One can say very clearly, that the hiking activity especially around the metropolitan areas of Berlin and Potsdam increased significantly due to a lack of alternative recreation in distant vacation areas. On the one hand this is great that so many residents got to know their surroundings better, but on the other side I noticed, as someone who hikes a lot, that several areas which were previously “secret tips” were now totally overflowing on weekends. Now it will become increasingly more important that new and alternative touristic destinations are advertised around big cities and that their infrastructure is well expanded in a scalable way.
The “Staffelwanderungen” which you planned by komoot sound exciting. What is it and how does a virtual “Staffelwanderung” work?
I had the idea for this about two years ago as the first corona contact restrictions came into force. From then onwards it was not possible to have my monthly group hikes and I was looking for a solution in order to continue to hold up the “community feeling.”
With the virtual relay, every participant takes a section of an entire course, and at the end all of the partial sections, completely in the Olympic spirit, are contributed to the sum of a large community effort. With my first “day by day” editions there was no conditions except for the starting point, which was the end of the previous participant’s trail. Then you would only know the night before where your hike would start on the next day, which naturally brought much excitement.
More favorite hikes of 2020
After a while, I modified the idea and now all participants start within a long weekend with given section starting and ending points, and the route between them can vary. Recently, we successfully completed the European Long Distance Route E11 together, a distance of 800 kilometers from Poland to West Germany in two events. In summer last year, a similar type of hiking relay took place over 3500 kilometers across Germany, of which I was one of the organizers.
After two years of relay hikes, I hope to soon be able to start up my organized group hikes again on a monthly basis.
Trail Virtualization
Personally, I prefer to hike with a map or book. Until now, I haven’t had much success with hiking apps, like komoot. How is it for you? Do you use it mostly to record your trails or also to hike?
Of course I learned in my training to navigate with a compass and map. The compass is always in my backpack as a mascot and occasionally I’ll take a detailed map of the region where I am. Even though I maintain that learning the principles of “analog navigation” as important, I have come to see it as glorified “hiking romance” which no longer plays a role in reality of today. I really like to read hiking books, but for me they’re more to whet my appetite or a source of inspiration than a direct guide for finding a trail on the go.
For many years, I have used a smartphone with the komoot app and the advanced downloaded digital section of the map for navigation, which usually works flawlessly without problems. Backups are nonetheless important: a power bank to charge up the battery belongs in your backpack, as well as a second navigation app on your smartphone. I have a Garmin sport watch too as a self-sufficient fallback system, which shows me the route and exact position on the map when necessary.
With komoot, you can manage the entire planning, navigation, and documentation within one platform, which I find to be a huge advantage. Besides, I like to use the community functions from komoot for hiking invitations and to organize and announce events.
Do you have favorite trails or regions in Berlin/Brandenburg?
Difficult question… there are just too many. I find regions which are hardly discovered to be the most exciting. I recently revisited the Calauer Schweiz in southern Brandenburg. In the last year, I especially liked the Wummsee on the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, around which the newest Quality Hike in Brandenburg goes. Always nice are the regions with seasonal highlights like around the blooming of the rare Adonis rose in the slopes of the Oder River by Lebus and Mallnow in the east on the border to Poland.
I can always recommend the region Hoher Fläming, in which I am now a hiking guide in the club Märkischer Wanderverbund.
Do you go on hiking vacations? Or do you get enough of it on a daily basis?
Through my work as an independent programmer, it is difficult for me to plan longer vacations in advance. But now and then I can easily take a workday for hiking, when the customer project allows it. In this respect, my main interest is still the wide radius around Berlin, although I now also more often complete more distant hikes as day trips as just a few days ago again in the Harz Mountains or recently in the Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz.
Anything else you’d like to say about yourself, hiking, or hiking in Brandenburg?
In principle, my banal hiking motto is “just go for it!” Often I hear from friends and acquaintances that a tour is too long, too far away, or too difficult to reach to tackle. If you really want to and you have a bit of discipline, almost every tour works out and is a success. Of course, it’s not a bad idea to always have a plan B ready to go. Even by spontaneous day trips, I think it is important to have your head free and to get completely involved in the harmony of nature for the day. Of course, this also includes going offline with the smartphone at the latest at the beginning of the tour and leaving the GPS switched on at most. In that sense: have fun and “keep on hiking in a free world!”
Did you enjoy this interview with Frank Meyer? You can find more about Frank’s hikes through Berlin and Brandenburg on his komoot profile or his website Wandern-Berlin-Brandenburg. Or join him for a tour with the Märkischer Wanderbund.