Rheinsteig - Koblenz to Braubach

Last week, Frannie and I used one day for a 20 km hike on the Rheinsteig. The short story goes something like the following:

First 18 km mostly through woods with 2 good climbs and one steep downhill. Felt good to be out, Frannie seemed to enjoy it as well. But I didn't need that hill between 18 and 19 km. Still after getting to the top, the reward was some great views of the Rhein and the castle Marksburg.

The longer story is a bit more involved. The previous week while looking at the map of Rheinsteig, I noticed that the trail passed Koblenz directly on the opposite bank of the Rhine. So is seemed like a good idea for my second hike on Rheinsteig to walk across the bridge and follow the trail up river.

So one morning last week found Frannie and I crossing the bridge over the Rhine. When we dropped down from the bridge on the other side, we were on Rheinsteig. The trail follows the river for less than a kilometer, then turns up through the villiage of Pfaffendorf. pass the church and into a valley as it climbs 300 metes over the next 5-6 km. At the top is Lichter Kopf, a tower build in WWII to allow German troops to watch over this part of the Rhine. That was until the heavy winds at the end of February that blew the tower down. Now all that is left is the twisted remains of the base of the tower.

The next 4.5 km offered views of the Lahn river that flows into the Rhine. At this point the trail begins a 145 meter drop in a 1/2 km called Ruperts Klamm. In Ruperts Klamm, there are places where the trial disappears. You just follow the flow of the water and scramble over any rocks in you way. It really looks more dangerous as it actually is. And there are covered steel cables that can be used in some of the tougher spot. Of course, those didn't help Frannie. There were a couple of spots that were difficult for her, but she managed to get through the Klamm without incident.

The trail continues down to and across the Lahm, then climbs the other side, passing by a hotel. Then we head down to that 18 km mark. At this point, I was feeling OK. but I was out of water, so the climb between 18 and 19 km was a bit harder than I would have liked. Frannie and I took a rest at the top, not knowing that if we had walked another 80 meters, we would had had a wonderful view of Braubach, the Rhine and Marksburg setting on the hill over the town.

Marksburg castle is one of the best preserved castles in Germany. It is certainly in the top 5 of castles to visit. Unlike the glamor castles built to satisfy 17th and 18th century egos, Marksburg is a true medieval fortress castle that claims to have never been over-run by invading armies. Well worth a tour.

The last kilometer was all downhill, depositing us in the middle of Braubach. Frannie and I found the train station and took the bus back to Koblenz. This was Frannie's first bus trip. But I don't think she noticed much. All she wanted to to was find a place to lie down and sleep.

Reinsteig - Lorch to Kaub

Rheinsteig is a 320 km hiking trails that follows the high banks along the Eastern side of the Rhine river from Bonn to Wiesbaden. As the trail follows the high banks there are plenty of wonderful views of the Rhine as you wander pass the castles along the way. But it also means that every river or stream that feeds the Rhine requires a decent and a climb. Thus the name Rheinsteig that translates to "Rhine Climb".

Magda's school wanted to have a fundraiser for UNICEF. So they chose May 20 as the day that the school would walk the entire Rheinsteig. That is to say, Rheinsteig would be split into sections that would be assigned to homerooms in each grade. Each homeroom there would walk there section on that day and the school would have then covered the entire Rheinsteig. UNICEF would receive the pledges that the students got for doing the walk.

Magda attached herself to a grade 11 homeroom and said that Frannie and I could tag along on their 15 km hike from Lorch to Kaub. So in the morning of May 20, Frannie, Magda, and I along with half of Max von Laue Gymnasium boarded a train heading south along the Rhine, while the other half of Max von Laue got on a train heading north.

As we traveled south, different homerooms would get off the train to hike there section of the trail, always hiking in towards Koblenz. The idea was that each homeroom would complete their section in about 5 hours meeting up with a single train North traveling back to Koblenz. The homerooms that went north would do the same, meeting a single south bound train. In this way, the entire school would end up back at the Koblenz train station at about the time.

It took about a hour to reach Lorch. The train station there was a little over 1 km from the trail. Once the trail reached the end of the town, it began climbing. It was a pretty steep climb, and the homeroom teacher for these 11th grades had a cold and was not feeling well. As a result he lagged behind as some of the boys in the group raced ahead. Magda, Frannie and I stayed towards the back, making sure that everyone was making it OK. Still, the walk was pleasant enough. There were some muddy sections that gave the students in their flat bottom shoes some problems. After all, what self respecting 11th grade girl could be seen in a pair of hiking boots. But the views of the Rhine and the castles on the other side were really wonderful. And soon enough we saw the small castle (toll booth really) in the middle of the Rhine that is the landmark for Kaub.

We reached the point where a trail headed down 1.8 km to Kaub, but Rheinsteig followed the trail up to a peak and then down pass the castle hoovering above the town of Kaub. That direction would be 5.8 km to Kaub. Which trail do you think the students racing ahead took? Yep, they were on the short trail almost to Kaub as Magda, Frannie and I reached the trail junction.

Unfortunately, since Magda was their in an official position, we had to follow the the students along the shorter path. So I didn't get to see as much of the Rheinsteig as I had hoped that day. But I'll certainly plan to see more in the not too distant future.