Feb 20: Meschede - Ramsbeck

On my way to my starting point Meschede I had to change trains in Hagen. It seemed kind of bleak for its population of almost 200,000 people. I had to wait about half an hour for my train to arrive, so I bought some food and took a walk around the area around the station.

I would have given my change to a homeless person, but not even the homeless seem to want to hang around here.

My train was already waiting at the platform even though it was only supposed to depart in about 20 minutes.

Time to inspect my food. 2500 calories for 3.50 €. Pretty sweet deal. And it isn't even bad food either. A Big Mac is only 500 calories for the same price by the way, and arguably less healthy.

The train got about 100 meters far before it stopped because of technical problems.

Train's still chilling.

Another half hour later the conductor told us the train wasn't going to make it and asked us to take the next one to Meschede, which was already waiting at another platform fortunately.

Going to depart any minute. And I've only hung around this station for one and a half hours.

I picked the wrong side to sit on though. I mostly just got these kind of sights while the other one got mountains.

Getting there.

I arrived at Meschede, but those clouds weren't looking nice at all.

The Ruhr going through Meschede.

Another view.

The church of Meschede.

And some rock thingy next to it. Meschede's a pretty cute town overall I'd say.

Another view of the church.

Oh. What do we have here?

Note the sign. Attention: Hostile water.

These guys clearly didn't care about me as much as I cared about them.

Leaving Meschede. That stream is coming from a dam reservoir just outside town.

I asked an old man taking a walk for the best way past the lake on top of the dam and he told me this stairway, called "Himmelstreppe" (stairway to heaven), was the way to go. 320 steps and 50 meters tall. He told me he was 76 years old but has started to climb it daily to stay fit.

The view down the stairway from about halfway up.

One from the last step.

And one from the platform on top of it.

To make this reservoir they actually flooded three small towns.

During hot dry summers, the old man told me, the highest parts of the towns still reach out of the water, and one summer, in the 70's I think he said, he was actually able to drive his car through the ruins. Kind of reminded me of Super Mario 64's Wet-Dry World.

Another view of the lake.

And another one from the beach.

Time for me to leave the lake behind and head into the mountains.

And I'm already greeted by mountain trees.

And mountain meadows.

And enchanted forests.

And nice views.

And dead-ends. So I had to head back to the meadow from earlier.

Slopes are kind of a bitch, but they're nice exercise too.

Actually it was like 5 °C outside, but it felt more like 20 to me.

We snow now.

Snow and more mountains.

And even more.

They're everywhere actually.

Those clouds...

This would have made a nice place to sleep, but it was still way too early.

I wanted to get closer to it, but there was some guy giving me funny looks and signs telling me I'm not allowed to enter the wind park.

Remblinghausen, the next town on my way to the top of this mountain range.

Another nice place to sleep.

The coat of arms of Northrhine-Westphalia.

"Oh, all who pass here and see this little house, think to yourselves for what purpose it was built".

I couldn't find any footpaths to the next town, but I guess this street was good enough.

At least on streets you don't get lost.

And reach the next town without any problems.

Towns with names as beautiful as Löllinghausen.

Löllinghausen even has its own bridge.

Not the best urban (rural?) planning though.

Leaving Löllinghausen. Still no footpaths in sight.

Miniature christmas trees.

When I reached the next town, Klause, it finally started to rain, so I didn't want to take too many pictures. This one was taken in a town called Mosebolle, when I was walking in a circle that wasted me a whole hour. I was completely unaware of it until I got back to the starting point.

I had to cross this stream to get to the next town, but I couldn't find the shortest path going over it. The one I eventually took was like two or three times longer than the shortest one.

And it was along a highway relatively heavily frequented by cars. The worst kind of highway.

But eventually I found a footpath leading further up the mountains to the next town. This picture was taken near the top of it, about 100 meters above the highway. Also it was already starting to get dark, so I started looking for a place to sleep.

I took a wrong turn and fortunately got blocked by this fence that kept me from wasting even more time. I think this area was the highest point of my trip by the way, with an elevation of about 550 meters. My starting point was at about 250.

Almost reached the next town, Berlar. But it wasn't actually even nearly as dark as it seems on this picture. That's my phone's camera's fault. When I reached the town, I walked through it to find a nice place to sleep for about half an hour and finally settled for some tunnel thingy on a playground. It was around 0 °C, but I still managed to sleep for about three hours.

I woke up at about half an hour before midnight and didn't really feel like getting back to sleep, so I walked towards the next town, Ramsbeck. This is it seen from about 100 meters above. I was zigzagging my way down to it like it was Rivendell. It even had a small waterfall too.

When I reached Ramsbeck, it was almost 2 a.m. and I felt even less like getting back to sleep in the cold than at midnight, so I admitted defeat and headed towards the nearest train station. I thought it was too dangerous to use the highway in the dark, so I took a detour up and down another mountain. The way up was easily the worst part of this trip. The ground was a mixture of wet mud and ice and it was too dark to even see it. At about 3 a.m I got back onto paved ground and finally reached the nearest train station at about 5 a.m., just ten minutes before the first train of the day arrived, after about 15 hours and 30 kilometers of walking, with a combined slope height of 800 meters. I took me about four hours to get back home, and I changed trains three times, but I still somehow managed to sleep another three hours on the train(s) without missing any of the stops I had to change trains at.