Location
Today's location is in the forest near Schmölz, a part of the Küls municipality near Kronach.
Country: Germany; state: Bayern (Bavaria, EU:DE:BY); Regierungsbezirk: Oberfranken; district: Kronach
Weather: very hot, 30°C at the hashpoint at 6 p.m.
Expedition
A hashpoint near Kronach, far from the Autobahns between Würzburg and Dresden, but along the federal road between Schweinfurt and Hof, so this would even be a shortcut distance-wise. At Schonungen I left the A70 Autobahn for the B303 federal road, which led me through the countryside to Coburg. It was very hot (up to 35 °C, the hottest Pentecost since the start of the recordings in 1881) and I was glad for the air conditioning in my car. Just after Coburg, the exit from a short piece of the B4 road that I had to use to continue along the B303 was closed for construction and I had to stay on the B4. What's it with all the construction going on and blocking my expeditions lately? I followed the route deviation which made me turn around at the next exit and leave the B4 from the northbound lane, thus circumnavigating the closed exit. That detour ate up all those kilometers I would have saved by using the federal road in the first place, but at least it didn't add anything extra (plus or minus 100 m, but that's within measurement accuracy). I continued along the B303 until I realized that Schmölz must be to my left, so I quickly turned into a street that looked like the one I knew from the map. Good thing that the car behind we was keeping enough distance between us because I must have turned quite unexpectedly. At Schmölz I left the car and started up the hill on foot.
At the edge of the forest I saw a pasture with fallow deer, then I slowly (it was still very hot) hiked up the slope, sweating profusely. While walking I barely missed stepping on a frog or toad. I don't know which species but I suspect a kind of toad. After that I walked uphill untill I came to a crossroads near the top of that hill, which is called Heidelberg. There I found the first of many signs from an educational trail. The ökologisch-botanischer Lehrpfad Schmölz teaches about the geological and biological diversity of this region, which is on the border of two very different geological zones. I walked along the track until I came to the third sign ("felled-area flora on chalky ground"), near the hashpoint. The first meters into the underbrush were easy, but soon it became denser. Apparently the hashpoint is in one of the most densely overgrown parts along the educational trail... The GPS coordinates kept jumping around and the GPS trail looks like I went back multiple times, but in reality I went mostly straight ahead with a little zig-zagging, exept on the last 10 meters. Finally the GPS showed more or less the correct coordinates and I decided to stay there, not wanting to run around for another 10 minutes just to get the last 0.00001° correct. It was 6 p.m. and my thermometer showed 30 °C in the shade of the forest. After building a marker and taking pictures I left the hashpoint towards the other direction because the underbrush was less dense there. Then I walked along the educational trail until I was back in Schmölz at my car. There, without the cooling forest, the thermometer showed 33 °C. I continued along the B303 road and finally along the Autobahn to Dresden.
| getting nearer, almost at sign no. 3
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| hashpoint panorama (incomplete)
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| boundary stone between Mitwitz and Schmölz with the "von Redwitz" family crest
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| educational trail sign: overview
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| educational trail sign: "fallow ground on calcareous low-nutrient meadows"
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tracklog
triton tracklog The tracklog is lying, I did not drive at 291 km/h.
