April turned out to be a month with quite varied weather. More so than in many previous years. It led to some unexpected diversity. Let’s have a look…
The first hike of the month was pretty much a repeat of a hike I did back in March 2011 (though it felt like it was much longer). Back then, it was damp and muddy. This time, it was damp but not extremely muddy at least.
The most appealing point of the hike was right at the start, a rock wall rising above the main road passing through the valley.
Despite the image, the trail leads up a relatively gentle slope behind the rocks. From there, it’s relatively gentle. I decided to make a small detour to look for some other minor rock formations, taking my sister and her friends, as well as one woman from the hiking club with me on this short detour.
We’ve found one mallet-like stone formation, a few more rock walls that were a bit too obscured by vegetation for photos, and then the second, larger, rock formation.
The sky also started clearing up, which was welcome in the sparse lookouts on the trail leading mostly through the woods.
Even though the pace I set up was lighter to not tire out my sister or her friends too much, by the time we were nearing the end, we still had a lot of time left. So while my sister with her friends took the direct trail to our destination, I decided to stay on the main trail a while longer, ascending to another peak with a lookout tower. By that time, the clouds were coming back again.
That said, we were lucky that there was no rain from these clouds. During the final descent, I enjoyed some sights of the nearby landscape, such as this orchard.
After which it was only a short walk to the town and the end of the hike.
The second hike of the month was a solo hike I admit wasn’t exactly sure about. The forecast was changing a lot, and I eventually decided to go to an area I favor a bit more in late summer or autumn and do a short loop there.
The path led me at the edge of a pasture slightly uphill, then turned into the woods, and I continued through a relatively warm morning towards my first target, a rock formation I visited in 2016.
And another smaller rock formation a short distance down the trail.
From there, I kept going mostly upward, until I reached the peak with a lookout – this was a return after quite a long time as my last visit there was the mentioned hike in 2016, even though I’ve been there (approaching from various directions) each year between 2010 and 2013 (at that point, I’ve exhausted potential approach paths).
The warm weather had brought the wildlife from its slumber even in the hills. The descent led me through a mix of clearings and sunny woods and rustling sounds were frequent as my steps sent lizards and sometimes even snakes retreating from the path.
I then spent some time circling around the quite dense set of trails, finding some other solitary rocks overgrown by moss before I reached the spa and, from there, descended to the train station.
During the next week, the weather changed. The temperature kept declining and for the next weekend, was even promising snow showers – which, after the warm previous weeks was a mild shock. The hike started in cloudy weather and, by the time we ascended from the village to the pass, turned into very light rain. Clouds shrouded the landscape, limiting our view which I knew to be quite charming from a past hike (coincidentally also from 2016, though in this case, that was in autumn).
The group taking the longest version of this trail planned for the day was around 7 people and we’ve remained together for the first part of the hike, at a pace that would keep us warm. Here and there, it looked for a moment that the clouds could break or at least rise, but nothing really changed in the beginning.
As we ascended, the rain turned into a mix of rain and snow. Given the low visibility, we could only enjoy the vibrant colors of trees sprouting fresh leaves, not the mountains around us.
I decided to make some good from the weather and took some close-up photos that only such a weather can provide:
The snow that fell, however, didn’t last, as the soil was still too warm for that, at least at our elevation. The clouds started to break, eventually, when we were around the halfway mark.
And, by the time we reached the final peak with a lookout, we were rewarded for our patience with some charming views, even though the mountaintops remained shrouded in clouds.
The snow showers reached even the lowlands in the mornings on Monday and Tuesday and I had hoped that the final weekend of the month will let me take a few more snowy photos if I go to the higher peaks nearby. No such luck. By mid-week, the temperature jumped back up toward +15°C in the day, melting the snow fast.
By Saturday, what was left were puddles of snow in the blueberry shrubs and some parts of the trail shaded from the sun – where it was quite tricky as it was quite smooth.
Slowing down during the early descent, where the trail was still a bit icy, was necessary, but I managed to get down just fine. And thus ended my last hike of April. May was just around the corner with a promise of new places to see and old places to revisit. But more about that the next time.
Despite the tricky weather, my overall impression from April was good. I’m still managing to go on at least a shorter hike each weekend since the year began, something I haven’t managed before.
Tomas - the wandering dreamer 