On the rare occasion of a morning off while working in Germany recently I decided I’d take a short drive to the Harz Mountains & have a go at running up the highest mountain I could find – this it turns out would be the mythical Brocken.
TheBrocken itself has a peak 1141m above sea level & is (according to Wikipedia)
shrouded in fog on 300 days of each year. It’s also a central to point to many German folk stories with a lot of stories about witches particularly associated with the surrounding area. It is also of course the mountain after which the Brocken Spectre phenomenon is named (didn’t experience it on this trip but certainly have in the past).
I parked up at Torfhaus which houses a large visitor centre & car-park & then followed the Goethe Trail up to the summit. Most of the run is on wide paths & well signposted in the efficient manner you may expect - I’d say it was all runnable but I’m sure some would disagree. The lower half of the run is through some nice wooded trails & over open moorland on short sections of boardwalk, then about halfway up the ascent the path meets up with & runs alongside the Brocken Mountain Railway for about 1-mile. However, as I had made quite an early start I didn’t manage to see any trains (or get any postcards for my Dad as the shop was shut!)
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| The summit |
The
shrouded in fog on 300 days of each year. It’s also a central to point to many German folk stories with a lot of stories about witches particularly associated with the surrounding area. It is also of course the mountain after which the Brocken Spectre phenomenon is named (didn’t experience it on this trip but certainly have in the past).
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| The spectre |
As I the path approaches the summit it joins a road for a short section before finally reaching the very top. There’s a reasonably large plateau at the top which houses the railway & weather stations along with another visitor centre & car-park. As I was fortunate to have made it up on 1 of the 65ish fog free days of the year (perfect, cloud free, blue sky) I spent a few minutes looking out over the rest of the Harz Mountains & marvelling at how flat the land to the east is (think Cheshire Plain!)
The descent was ludicrously quick (new 10k PB!) & the paths were getting quite busy with German hikers who seemed to look at me with a puzzled expression & seemed even more bewildered when I replied “Ja” to their questions of “Führen Sie auf dem Brocken ?” On return to the car I made full use of the autobahn’s most famous feature & just made my plane home – probably scared a few people with my luminous orange T-shirt, muddy legs & accompanying smell though!!
That’s one German mountain ticked off my list – I have another planned for when I get some time off when in the south…
Giles
Giles
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