2015-11 Simply Getting Out
For me too, this weekend it was time to get out into nature once again.
A wise man once said: whoever goes out into nature alone gets to know himself.
For my part, lately I've always been out with others. I simply missed going out alone again. Time to think about all sorts of things.
Sometimes about sensible topics, sometimes about the greatest nonsense, but that's exactly why I love the time alone so much.
As with the last tours, I packed at the very last minute. That'll be different on the next tour! Because that way I only got out into nature after noon. At least I'm lucky and the forest is no more than 5 minutes on foot away, so out I go.
And at a brisk pace, deeper into the forest, after all I can still hear people who seem to be heading into the woods with dogs and kids... exactly what I don't need, so I flee forward!
The beautiful autumn time with all its leaf colour variations is over by now; instead there's now the somewhat drearier version. But at least the weather is good!
I quickly got the first metres of elevation behind me, thanks to trekking poles at an unusually fast pace, even uphill.
And some corners invited me to rest a bit and quench my own thirst again. As you can see, a light mist hung in the air, simply beautiful.
But the late start to the day also had its downside, because dusk now set in just a few hours after the start. From the area I had come from, I heard two gunshots; apparently a few hunters were out and about.
Well, first of all further away, and secondly the decision loomed whether I should call it a day and take the next best spot for the night, or walk a bit further and search for a sleeping spot with a flashlight in the evening. I chose the latter.
A few kilometres further on I found a beautiful spot for the night and pitched my tarp. What timing - just as I was done, the rain started, and it wasn't supposed to stop again until the end of the tour.
I enjoyed the protection from the cool wet stuff from above under the tarp and was pleased, as so often, to be able to see the raindrops through the tarp.
While I lie with my head on my improvised pillow made of the pack and the feed bag, I notice that the pillow insulates brilliantly this time. After pondering for a while, it turns out that it can only be the rice cakes that insulate so well. Of course, they have a firm structure and lots of trapped air. With the thought of what R-value rice cakes actually have and how sensible multi-use edible sleeping pads are, I drifted off into the land of dreams for ten or twelve hours.
Woken only by the slug that crawled across my face and by the voles beneath me making too much racket again.
The next morning, quickly packed up and out into the rain.
Following a spot-the-difference picture: where did I lie and where did the tarp keep off the rain?
Righty! Exactly above me 
Unfortunately, the way home wasn't very nice, because it no longer went over the ridge of the mountain, but partly even over hiking superhighways
But even here there was the occasional beautiful spot.
And something to think about
It's always fascinating that 24 hours of going out can be more relaxing than 420 hours of talking about going out.
Cheers,
kImpi
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