Germany 2018 - Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle

After our last day full day in Butzbach and spending a quick morning in the town center for breakfast, we headed out towards our next stop Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle. We stopped for a few hours near Frankfurt so go to a mall, then drove to Kempton where we stayed the night.

The next day we left Kempton and drove the the castles. We had pre-booked tour times for both of the castles to make sure we would be able to make it. I recommend doing this because the on site line up was about an hour long, we only waited for about 10 minutes.

While we waited for our tour time, we ate lunch, wandered around the town site looking at the lake and the birds, and we went out on the lake in a row boat. It was a pleasant few hours before we took a horse drawn carriage up to Hohenschwangau Castle.

After the carriage ride, we wandered around the Hohenschwangau castle grounds for the last half hour before our tour. The grounds had a beautiful garden and a great view of the surrounding area.

Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take any pictures or videos of the interior of either castle, so you'll just have to go visit yourself to see it! After Hohenschwangau, we headed over and caught a bus to Neuschwanstein, which is a good ways up a hill. You do still have to walk the last kilometer or so along the base of the castle which makes the castle look pretty impressive.

After doing the Neuschwanstein tour and roaming around the courtyard and garden, Jaime, Roslyn and I decided to hike the trail behind the castle up the mountain side. Candance and Roslyn's Omi stayed behind, so we limited ourselves to a quick trip. We started from a bridge across the valley Neuschwanstein sits in and then went up the mountain side. The trail was well marked and easy to walk on, there was just a whole bunch of elevation gain!

After the hike, we unfortunately had to jump in the car and get going. Our next hotel was a few hours away so we ate at a local brewery before heading out. We did get some nice pictures of Neuschwanstein castle as we drove away though.

Where to Start, Where to Start

Roslyn and I have decided to complete the West Coast Trail next summer. Its a 75 km long 1508 m of elevation trail that's half way across the country from us. We're going to be showing a bunch of our planning here and occasionally on our youtube channel to help others plan their own long trips.

The first step to any backpacking trip is either deciding what time you have available to go backpacking or what trail you want to go backpacking on. Since Roslyn and I already know what trail we want to do all we have to do is figure out a time to do it! For local overnight or day trip trails this is pretty easy to do, and for longer local trails in the 3-5 day category is becomes a bit more difficult but still not too onerous. Unfortunately for us, the West Coast Trail is half a country away and from what we've read so far takes 6 to 8 days to complete.

Here's a list of what needs to be considered when selecting when to go:

1 - How long will the hike take?
2 - When will the weather permit the hike?
3 - What are travel arrangements like?
4 - What happens if you need to extend the time on trail?
5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Lets work through each of these one at a time.

1 - How long will the hike take?

The West Coast Trail is 75 km long with 1508 m of elevation gain according to AllTrails. While not mountain climbing, that's still a lot of height changes over that distance. From reading the reviews and talking to a co-worker that has done it, 6-7 days seems to be about average. Roslyn and I are going with 6 days, putting us at a mere 12.5 km per day of travel. That should give us plenty of time to look around, explore, and if something happens like a creek being impassable we will be able to make up the delay.

2 - When will the weather permit the hike?

Since its on the coast, the window of good weather if pretty wide, but we still want it to be warm out. We narrowed our window down to June, July, or August, as that was the time period with a temperature and rainfall amount we found acceptable.

3 - What are travel arrangements like?

We are going to be travelling to BC 3-4 days before our hike starts to visit with Roslyn's sisters. Because of this, we really only need to figure out 4-6 hours of travel to get to the trail head from their place. The only other consideration is that you need to do an orientation session at the trail head, which is only held twice a day. Since the 4-6 hours travel time means we will miss the morning orientation, and we don't want to start the hike a 3:30 we are going to have to arrive the day before we plan on starting the trail.

4 - What happens if we need to extend the time on the trail?

Due to the chance of injury or lots of rain, there is a possibility of having to stay on trail for an extra day or two.Roslyn and I are planning on staying with my dad for a few days after were done the trail, so we can eat into that. If you aren't planning on staying in the vicinity of the trail after you're done, you should give a day or two leeway on your final departure date. Missing planes or other expensive travel costs makes an injury or trail delay even more disappointing.

5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Given the above information, Roslyn and I picked an ideal start date. But because the passes for the trail are first come first served, we needed to pick a couple of secondary (and tertiary) dates. Since we were staying in the area both before and after our hike, we picked dates in that were right beside our ideal date so that it impacted our overall plans as little as possible.

If you can go through and answer those five questions you will be well on your way to planning a longer backpacking trip. The next steps are to actually figure out our travel itinerary and how were getting around, but before we can do that all of the start-end dates needed to be figured out.

If you have any questions about this, or anything else, let me know!

Germany 2018 - Butzbach day 3, Tour of the Rhine

On our last full day in Butzbach, we once again spend the morning hanging out with family for a time before Roslyn's great uncle Erich took us out on another day trip. This time we were headed to tour the banks of the Rhine river. 

Our first stop of the day was an old river castle, which had been converted into a public garden. We walked from the car down along the river before turning into the castle to look at the gardens. While we were there, a couple was taking wedding photos so we tried our best to stay out oft he way.

After the castle garden, we jumped back into the car and drove to Rudesheim am Rhein. In Rudesheim, we spent a few hours taking the gondola up to Niederwalddenkmal, and then walking around Drosselgasse. Niederwalddenkmal is a monument commemorating the unification of Germany, built in 1880s/1890s. Drosselgasse is a particularly narrow street lines with wine shops and restaurants.

After we were finishes in Rudesheim, we took a drive along the Rhine before returning to Butzbach. Along the way we saw about a dozen river baron castles dotting the hill sides, along with vineyards planted on every sunlit space the could be found in the valley.

After getting back to Butzbach, we spent our last evening in the town with all of the family, eating supper at Erich's and spending the evening talking about our trip with them and what everyone's planning on doing for the next few weeks and months.

Roslyn and I would just like to give a huge thanks to everyone who made the stay in Butzbach to awesome!

Hiking in the Winter - A Few Things Not to Do

Following up on the last post, there are also a few things that you need to make sure you do not do to make you winter hiking more enjoyable. Some of these are safety tips, some of these are just comfort items, but all of them will hopefully help you out.

1 - Don't go out on the ice!

One of the most important safety tips is to make sure you don't go out on any rivers or lakes you are familiar with when they are covered in ice. It's hard to tell what the river current is really like if there's ice on top of it, so it may be fairly strong. The problem with a strong river current is that the ice will remain thin all winter, leading to a higher risk of falling through.

Another place to make sure you don't go out on the ice is any where near rapids or water falls. The rapid changes in water depth, current directions, and eddies means that ice thickness it very unpredictable.

2 - Know where the trail is

One aspect of winter hiking is that the trail is actually covered in snow. The snow cover can make it difficult to keep track of the trail in open areas or thinly wooded sections. Making sure that you have a good map with a compass or GPS to help navigate, or that the trail is really well marked, is essential to make sure that you stay on route and travel where expected.

3 - Don't sweat!

While is seems like an odd tip, making sure you don't sweat too much when its cold out side is really important. It kind of ties into my tip about having many thin layers to help with heat management. Sweating will make you wet. If you get to wet and something happens that ends up in you thermal layers getting damage or you just take them off for a bit you will lose body heat very rapidly. This can lead to a lot of complications, and getting warmed up again will be difficult.

Hiking in the Winter (or Canadian Fall!)

One of the joys of living in Canada is the extended duration during which you can enjoy winter activities. The snow, cold, and ice lasts a long time, letting you get out snowboarding, skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and skating for about 4 to 5 months. The main downside is that it makes hiking a bit more difficult. By about mid-December I can guarantee the snow will likely be too deep unless we get some snow shoes, but that turns it into a different activity entirely! (Not that we don't plan to get snow shoes in the next few months.)

Two of the last three hikes we did had about 2- inches of snow on the ground and the temperature was about -10C. Hiking is still very possible but a few things need to be done differently.

1 - You have to use boots

When the snow get above about a half inch deep, you have to use hiking boots instead of trail runners. The main benefit to this is that the snow won't be able to work its way up and into the area where your foot is. Keeping you feet warm and dry is really important to both the enjoyment of the hike and avoiding blisters and sores.

2 - Poles make and even bigger difference

Once it starts getting a bit slippery, trekking poles go from helping ease the load on your legs and knees from the weight if the backpack you're carrying, to also helping reduce fatigue from trying to keep your core stabilized. If its slippery, you will use more inner thigh and core muscles than normal to keep your legs under control. Over short times and distances this isn't much of an issue, but over 10+ kilometer it significantly increases muscle fatigue. Trekking poles help to put that load on your arms, shoulders and back muscles if used properly. Then you just feel like you've lightly worked your whole body instead of did a double leg day at the gym.

3 - Micro-spikes are not a gimmick

Along with using trekking poles, good quality micro-spikes on your boots will also help reduce fatigue. They help reduce the amount of slipping you feet do, which in turn reduces the load on your body from trying to remain stable.

4 - Thin layers trump thick layers

This may just be a preference thing, but I greatly prefer having 2-4 thin layers on than having 1 or 2 heavy layers on. I have a lot of problems with heat management, in that I will heat up and sweat at even the lightest amount of physical activity. Having more layers means I can gradually reduce the amount of insulation covering me so that I don't keep suddenly changing from too hot to too cold as I remove one or two large layers.

5 - Remember to drink water

The cold really inhibits your desire to drink water when you're out hiking. The problem with this is that you still need to do it! You won't need as much water as if it were warm outside, but you still need more than you normally would while sitting around at home. When its cold out, I aim to drink a liter of water every 8ish kilometers instead of every 4 to 6 kilometers when its hot outside.

With these tips in mind, get out there and try hiking in the snow fall! Its a beautiful sight and you can get an extra month or so out of the hiking season!

Upcoming Plans

Coming into the holiday season, Roslyn and I are starting to plan out what we are doing and how much free time we have. Our weekends are already pretty busy and the week is only getting busier. We do not want to have any unscheduled skipped posts either here or on our Youtube channel, so we are preparing for the next few weeks and then planning on taking a month off over the holiday season.

The dates we are taking off are December 10th through to January 7th. The first blog post when we come back will be on January 8th and the first Youtube video after the break will be January 9th.

The content should continue as planned up until December 10th.

When we get back I will be adding a new series into rotation, Planning a Long Distance Hike. We are planning on hiking the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island next summer, and we are going to walk through our planning for it here so that everyone can use it as an example.

Thanks to everyone for reading so far and I wish you a happy holiday season!

Germany Trip - A Day Spent In Butzbach

Day number two in Butzbach was.... actually spent in Butzbach! We spent the early morning hanging out with Roslyn's family again, just talking and having a late breakfast. At 11 am we headed towards the town center to go on a walking tour of the town. The walking tour was pretty interesting. It covered the historic growth of Butzbach, the problems it faced, conflicts that greatly affected it, and the importance of the town wall that was created.

Roslyn and I standing at the 'Welcome to Butzbach' sign

Wall houses were made in the arches

One of the cool aspects of the wall was that the arches in the wall have had houses created in them in order to fit more people into the town. These houses are about 6 feet wide and 15 long, with two stories. Way, way to small for Roslyn and I to live in!

 Bathroom addition, no indoor plumbing when it was built

 Center of Butzbach

 

A more artistic(?) angle

 Watch tower where prisoners were kept

 A pretty impressive church

After the tour, we spent some time wandering around looking a the shops before heading back to hangout with the family again. Mid-afternoon we went on a walk through a local forest. We spent about 45 minutes going along trails and saw a few small deer. There are apparently boar in the area but we did not have the (dis)pleasure of seeing them.

Germany Trip - First Day in Butzbach

Our first day in Butzbach was actually filled with going places and seeing stuff, instead of actually staying in Butzbach. Roslyn's great uncle Erich was wonderful and acted as our tour guide. We spent a bit of the morning hanging out with Roslyn's Omi and her great aunts and uncles before going out with Erich. Our first stop was a local iron mine that had been decommissioned a few decades ago.

The cable drum for the elevator we went down in.

We hiked to the top of the mine to look at the elevator cable drum and the operators area. Both are still functional and we ended up taking a ride down the elevator for a tour of the mine after. We didn't get any good pictures in the mine because of the lighting, but we were shown the evolution of mining equipment over the life span of the mine, and had fun looking around.

After the mine, we headed to a castle we have forgotten the name of. First castle visit! On our way to it we stopped for lunch and walked around for a bit looking at the buildings.

Traditional German look

Gateway to the castle

We had lunch at the restaurant on the left

After lunch we walked around the castle and had a tour of the inside. Unfortunately, pretty much all castles that offer tours don't allow pictures or video of the inside. The inside of the castle was pretty extravagant, which was kind of expected. It was a pretty awesome half hour tour.

Gate in the castle wall

Rose in the court yard 

After the castle, we drove back to Butzback and spent a wonderful evening with all of Roslyn's relatives. Erich had us over for supper as well, and we spent the evening talking about pretty much everything.

This is Manitoba - Lights of the North Lantern Festival

This year there was a lantern festival held at the Red River Exhibition grounds called Lights of the North. A group of artists and performers came from China to tour North America, and were presenting both the lanterns they fabricated and an acrobatic and cultural performance. We decided to check it out because it sounded pretty interesting. On our way to the Exhibition grounds, we were treated to a home grown Manitoba light show, with the sunlight playing amazing colours across the clouds.

Light show across the clouds

Gate way to the Lights of the North

Inside the festival, we were treated to a collection of different lantern creations. They were spaced out all around the grounds so there was a fair bit of walking, but looking at them all was pretty good. There was also a concession area setup, with food trucks and traditional Chinese cuisine being served, including a cotton candy artist.

A great white bear roar out over the crowd

Phoenix rising in a temple

All the Zodiac symbols

Great dragon

Traditional temple, as a lantern

The festival also took the time to create a few tributes to our local Winnipeg heritage. Honestly, it was a great touch and I think it was really cool of them to do it.

Winnie the Pooh, a local hero 

The side of the Human Rights museum, redecorated

The Golden Boy in all his glory

The backside of the entrance was also quite impressive, and an amazing last view of the wonderful lantern festival.

The entrance/exit from afar

Last view of the festival