Hike No 14 (Siebengebirge) - A Morning in the Mountains
No 13
Date: October 8th
Weather: fog, then sun, somewhat cool
Location: Siebengebirge, Germany
Starting point: Rosenauer Weg
Destination: Weilberg
Via: Nonnestromberg, Stenzelberg
Destination reached: Yes.
Walked Distance: approx. 12 km (7.5 miles)
Duration: 5:00 hours
Treasures found: none
Blisters: one
I had a daring plan for this hike, wanted to be in the mountains at sunrise. Even though I managed to get up at 5:30 am, I didn't quite make it though, I reached my starting point at roughly 8:00, when sunrise was scheduled for 7:45 am (which didn't matter much though). I still needed 2 autumn pics for my treeseasons series, and I hoped to catch them with a nice soft morning light. Imagine my shock when I left the bus and was standing in thick white fog. There was no sun, so sky and no soft morning light. This was not what the weatherforecast promised me!
Somewhat grumbling, I began my ascend. Much to my happiness, after 20 the fog had cleared completely. (And I would later realize what had caused this miracolous change in weather.) And I could just see the morning sun creeping up behind the hills.
Ignore bluriness. Seems I couldn't hold the cam still here.
A bit later I reached my first target, the meadow at the slopes of the Petersberg. The meadow still lay in the shadow of sorrounding mountains and was soaked in morning dew.
Only the peaks of the western mountains were illuminated by the early sunlight. A couple of rather huge birds flew high above the hills, probably buzzards or goshawks.
And there was a beautiful moon as well.
Sadly, the tree I wanted to take my autumn pic of wasn't, unlike many other trees, very autumn-like at all. I guess I'll have to wait another few weeks.
So I decided to skip the second tree as well and instead went towards a hill called Nonnenstromberg, which was still missing in my collection of climbed peaks anyway.
The ascent was moderate and not too long, since I already mastered half of it by reaching the meadow below.
Hmmm. A Pile of Rocks.
And a bit of a view.
And then time to go down again.
It was still early in the morning when I decended from Nonnenstromberg again and made my way towards the Stenzelberg. The sun, still low in the sky, finally gave me the "autumn mood" I had hoped for.
Making my way up to the Stenzelberg wasn't difficult at all, and after a while I reached the a clearing on the "peak" and was offered an amazing, rather unexpected view.
The peak of the Stenzelberg was actually a plateau of naked rock. Well not entirely naked, as there were trees growing on top, but nevertheless, it was a huge piece of vertical rock, beautifully illuminated by the morning sun.
It's amazing, even after a year of hiking in these hill, you can still find new, astonishingly beautiful places like this.
I began to scramble up to the rocks, which probably extended for 200 metres as far as I could see, and were probably 10 metres or more in height.
Good place for a pic of myself.
Then I went to the far side of the rocks.
There I found a single wedge-shaped rock reaching up into the morning sky.
The sun hadn't reached here so far. I shall come back some other time for better light.
A view up.
Towards the west, I could see down in the valley, and I finally realized, why there had been fog when I started my journey.
It was a damn cloud! Yes, there were clouds lingering in the valley below and the reason why the fog cleared so quickly after I began to ascend was simple: I had climbed above it. So while the people down there couldn't even see the sun, I was here and enjoyed beautiful weather!
I kept handling along the rocks as close as I could, which was pretty difficult at times, but I was hopeful that there was some way up to the top of the plateau. And there was, although it included a good amount of scrambling and almost killed my already damaged shoes. The huge number of acorns lying around didn't make things easier either, because on the steep slopes they would start to roll below your soles. But I made it up and it was worth it.
Small path ontop the plateau with the edge on the left.
I didn't dare to go to close to the edge, because, well, one wrong step would mean a rather unpleasent and possibly fatal plunge.
View from top of the plateau towards west.
The "dark" side of the rocks seen from the top.
There was some rusty barbed-wire, rather unskillfully placed, and it wasn't really clear what it was supposed to do anyway: prevent people from entering the inner part of the plateau or prevent people from going to close to the edges. Because it did neither really well. All it did was scare me to death when I stumbled over a hidden part of it. Finally I left the plateau and resumed my journey.
Somewhere here I heard the peculiar cry of a bird, very close nearby, but I could't find the bird that was producing the sound.
Back home I searched some internet database though, and I think found the bird in question:
It was some kind of buzzard, apparently.
Listen here:
It was some kind of buzzard, apparently.
Now I took a longer rest, mostly because I wanted to avoid a large hiking group of elderly people that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Then I lefte The Stenzelberg and reached the road with thus bus station where I ended my journey last time, this time however, I moved on to my final target, the Weilberg.
Having fun with my shadow.
For some reason I made a full circle around the Weilberg, which was rather unnecessary, since I actually wanted to go inside it. At least I had a nice view over the the Ölberg.
Then I finally found the "entry" to the Weilberg, which was basically a larger version of the quarry I found ontop the Ölberg.
I was too lazy to combine this into a panorama pic. Use your imagination. ;)
The cliffs werer probably 20metres high, those peculiar large birds I saw before were flying on top of it, and there was a small lage in the middle. A very nice closure to a very nice trip and certainly another place that warrants a second visit.
I rested for a while and then went back to the bus station, going home.