If you’re just joining me on the trail, check out my first two posts about starting in Potsdam and the trail through the seasons.
It’s already the first weekend of March and I’ve only completed 6 tours of 17 with the goal of completing the hike before July! To solve this problem, I decide it’s time for an overnight. In my head the plan looks like this: I’ll hike 27 km from Hangelsberg to Bad Saarow and visit the thermal bath there before finding a camping spot for the night. In the morning, I’ll hike 24 km from Bad Saarow to Wendisch Rietz. It’s not supposed to be colder than 0⁰C at night and my sleeping bag is good to -7⁰.
Perfect plan. What could go wrong?
I packed up my big backpack (with tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, food and water for two days, and of course my rain jacket) determined to spend the night out and hike two tours in a weekend.
Tour 10: Hangelsberg to Bad Saarow
Going through the little village of Hangelsberg, I passed some residents who gave me and my big pack some funny looks. “How long have you been out for?” some of them asked. “Just since this morning.” I felt kind of silly. Firstly because I had this huge backpack for just one night and secondly because, well, maybe it was a little early in the season for camping.
The first 13 kilometers of the hike were along the Spree River and had great views of the water the whole way. A lot of it was marshy field, which made the going kind of tough (like walking on sand) and my boots got wet. The day was wonderfully warm for March, so I packed my fleece away and enjoyed the few warm hours of the weekend.
I left the banks of the Spree in Fürstenwalde, passing through some fields and pine forests. This part of the tour had some big “sights”. There was the highest point on the trail – a whopping 150 m, the giant stone table, a large boulder left over from glacial activity, and an old ski jump (now engulfed by forest). One of the coolest parts was going up to the top of a lookout tower. It was much taller than I expected and I was able to see quite far even with all the clouds.
Despite all these interesting stops, the trail has a one star rating, which lends the question of why? Well, a good two kilometers of trail are directly next to the highway. As if the view wasn’t unpleasant enough, the noise is deafening as cars and trucks whiz by on the autobahn. At least I had the thermal bath to look forward too!
After an hour in the thermal bath in Bad Saarow, I decided I needed to get going to find a camping spot for the night. It was already 5 o’clock and would be dark within the next hour and a half. I followed the trail around the northern shore of the Scharlmützelsee with a great view of the setting sun (I had better hurry!). I walked another kilometer or so west of the lake and found a spot in the woods to pitch my tent. Tent pitched and bathing suit hung up to try, I settled in with a book. The moon came up large and bright, but I was nervous with thoughts of wild boars and whether or not what I was doing was legal (…it’s not!).
I didn’t get much sleep (probably because I’m scared of the dark). And it was pretty cold – it ended up being about -3⁰C. Around midnight I heard a noise which caused me to get up and out of my tent. It sounded at first like the apples falling out of my food bag which I had placed in a tree (turns out my food was untouched; I have no clue what the noise was). Then I heard a bark-like cry. When I turned on my head lamp though, I couldn’t see a thing. The air was misty and any time I breathed the air became so thick with moisture that it was impossible to see more than a yard in front of me. It was most likely a dog, but in my groggy, scared, freezing-cold state, it was difficult to distinguish dog from monster.
In the night I was thinking that the decision to camp out was a stupid one. When I woke up in the morning, the birds were chirping and I was snuggly warm inside my mummy bag, so I was beginning to think it would be nice to do again next weekend.
Then I unzipped my sleeping bag and felt the ice cold air rush in. I put on my boots and discovered their soggy condition hadn’t improved. The mist was thick and showed no signs of dissipating. My bathing suit hung to dry on the tree had become frozen solid in the night. I packed up my damp tent with ice on the tent poles and trudged on. Don’t you wish you were me?
Tour 11: Bad Saarow to Wendisch Rietz
Walking kept me and my feet warm. I went by a few lakes, through a few tiny settlements and by some bleating sheep, which cried “maaaa” so loudly I thought the whole farm would wake up. Fast forward some kilometers… fields, forest, sandy paths, sand dunes. Wait. Sand dunes? YES! Sand dunes. It’s the closest thing we can get to mountains in Brandenburg. Just outside of Storkow before reaching the lake, there’s an enormous hill of sand. All over Europe the beaches are grass or pebbles. Germany has almost no beach, but that’s where all the sand is!
Aside from a quick glimpse at the beginning and end the Grosser Storkower See is almost never in view for the last 9km of the hike ending in Wendisch Rietz. I couldn’t wait to hop on the warm train and get back to Berlin!
Although these two tours were probably the most mentally challenging and the least positively rated, looking back on them made me realize they had many enjoyable and valuable moments.
