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A Family Hike in the 'Lochbachklamm' (Hesse)

About a week ago, we went on another adventure exploring Germany and stayed in a tiny village in Hesse (central Germany). Else's mom had planned this trip as a family vacation for Else's siblings, their partners, and Else's nephews. Not far from our vacation home was the 'Lochbachklamm,' a small valley with fourteen wooden bridges. The valley was part of a shortish hiking trail of about 8.5 kilometers and our host strongly recommended it.

The next day after breakfast, we started out to find the bridges. It wasn't easy to combine the interests and abilities of eight adults and three children. One of Else's sisters and her partner were taking selfies (or asked others to take pictures) all the time. Her brother wanted to get on and was annoyed about all the breaks. Her other sister and her husband are not accustomed to physical exercise and insisted that we shouldn't walk the entire trail and should just go to see the bridges.

As soon as we left our vacation home, we found the first trail marker. That seemed easy! We kept following the markers, turned left at a crossing where the marker told us to turn left. We walked on peaceful forest tracks, never meeting a single person (first warning sign). At some point, Ilse spotted the wooden bridges. On a parallel track, about twenty meters below us, no track leading there (second warning sign). We mused: this is a loop hike. So maybe this is how it's supposed to be? We did notice, though, that we hadn't seen any trail markers since we followed the one at the crossing ...

At some point, we decided that we should probably turn back or find a way to get down. And we did find a 'way' down. We weren't sure if we could actually walk it, so the both of us went 'scouting,' leaving the others behind. When we were sure (surish ...) that we could make something of this, we called the others and they followed. A few meters before reaching us, a scream: "snake!" The 'snake' turned out to be a slowworm, a lizard, but it was exciting!

After twenty minutes or so, we finally reached the first of the fourteen bridges. What a relief! And the valley was incredibly beautiful as well. At times, it reminded us of movies, of scenes in The Lord of the Rings. Here, we saw many people—too many to feel comfortable during a global pandemic. But that shouldn't have surprised us.

After we reached the wooden bridges, almost everyone enjoyed the rest of our hike. The scenery was incredibly beautiful, the bridges added a romantic atmosphere, and the children enjoyed running around. Just Else's sister and her husband seemed exhausted and couldn't wait to get back to our vacation home. But still: we had a wonderful day in the woods and the two of us would love to try this trail again—we found the right trail markers on our way back.
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Location: Knüllstraße, 34593 Knüllwald, Germany

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