In today’s post, I’ll look back at my one-day hikes from October. As I mentioned in the monthly summary, the month was quite busy for me, so I was just glad to be outside on the weekends and didn’t seek out any particular places.
This was especially the case with the first hike, where I just took the train to the lower portion of the hills for pretty much a simple walk. That said, the autumn colors were already taking shape, and thus it was also quite nice without any far sights. And, at this time of the year, the autumn mushroom season also tends to start, which is a good subject for photos.
As I chose easy trails, it was quite relaxing, my mind wandering most of the time, though I was staying aware of my surroundings for potential nice sights.
This included not only mushrooms but also the colorful surroundings when the woods opened up into clearings.
The trail I chose was pretty much one of the few in the area I haven’t walked yet, though I used some parallel trails in both directions, so I was mostly filling the gaps. And while I tend to pay more attention to edible fungi, I also appreciate the raw natural beauty of other sights, such as when the remains of a tree lose their struggle…
Midway through, the trails took me across a large field, but the visibility wasn’t good enough to enjoy the larger mountains in the distance.
After getting back to the woods, I paid maybe too much attention to admiring mushrooms, edible or not, and ended up taking an extra loop around as I missed a turn, but given that it wasn’t difficult terrain, it didn’t bother me much.
In the end, because of some infrastructure issues, the hardest part was the way home, where I almost missed a follow-up train, so I had an extra train-station sprint, not just a hike, that day.
A week later, I went on a second one-day hike in October, this one with the hiking club. This was a return to a trail I’d been to twice, each in a slightly different way, but sharing the main section. I will always remember the first time because of how strange the weather was back then. It was early June 2013, yet it was windy and quite cold – barely above freezing in the morning and around 7°C at the peaks at midday. This time it wasn’t much warmer, but at least it’s something one would expect in mid-October, unlike June.
During the early parts, before the trail turned up in steepness, I took some photos of fungi again. Past that, I was glad the trail was mostly through the woods, which mitigated some of the gusts of chilly wind. As I gained altitude, I could enjoy the views more.
At the first (and tallest) peak of the area, I stopped for a bit in the chalet to enjoy a warm tea before continuing. The trail opened up shortly – as the young trees aren’t too tall, I could enjoy the scenery a fair amount.
The somewhat windy weather seemed to keep a lot of people home, as the trail wasn’t nearly as busy as I knew it could be. And despite the clouds coming and going, I could see quite far, even if some mountains in the distance were just faint outlines.
By the time I reached the crossing where I was to leave the main trail, it was around noon. Knowing I had plenty of extra time, I decided to push it and continue down the main trail to the second major peak, which would mean an extra 2,5 hours and would still leave me with some time to spare.
The trail up until now was relatively easy, but from this point on, it weaves up and down across several smaller peaks before it reaches the pass before the last one. The final part of the trail is steeper than the previous peaks, so this bit warmed me up, and the mountains again proved how tricky they can be – as soon as I made it to the lookout, the clouds and wind came, and thus I decided not to linger – with the present clouds, the previous views from the trail were better.
Thus, I took a break on one of the smaller mountains, by which time it was sunny again, to have a small snack before moving on.
With the clouds and sunlight coming and going, the day kept its variety.
Pretty much until the end of the hike. Even the final bit wasn’t easy, as there was one last peak to deal with, and with my extra detour, that proved to be harder than I expected. But, in the end, that’s why I do it, to have some real exercise; otherwise, I could just walk around town…
So, that’s it for my two one-day hikes in October. The five-day hiking trip from the end of the month will get a separate post later this month.
