2023-12-27 49 10

Location

In a forest near Fladengreuth

Participants

Expedition

While yesterday's hash was a nice and simple hash, taking public transport to a useful final stop, and simply walking to the hash without major obstacles, todays was quite different: The differences start with the bus stop I picked for this hash: Unterbiebert Alte Schule (roughly: Lower Biebert old school) might be on a frequent line - the bus 113 I used previously - but it's the last stop, and most busses terminate early. As a result, there is a bus every 3 hours from there, so I will have exactly three hours to get to the hash, to locate it, and to get back to the bus stop. Under normal circumstances it should take me ~75 mins, so I have a decent safety margin (or, I'll probably have to wait over an hour until my bus home arrives). To make the most out of the shy winter sun, I depart at 7am, giving me full sunlight until my bus home leaving Unterbiebert at noon.

I arrive in Unterbiebert as scheduled at 8:22 am and start walking towards the hash. It's a calm Wednesday morning and it's a calm road from Unterbiebert to Fladengreuth, so I can freely use that road on foot - and for once not really feel bothered by the fact that this road has no sidewalk. Beep beep, I'm a car now.

I enter the forest near Fladengreuth, and arrive in the approximate vicinity of the hash (100 meters) without issue. But now, I'm faced with the first obstacle: Where I want to leave the path to start approaching the hash, there are dense bushes and trees lining my path. I go a few dozen meters in either direction, but no break in sight. I've come to close to give up, and I'm stuck at Unterbiebert until noon anyways, so after some preparations I start forging my path inwards - through the bushes and small trees and towards the hash. It's only like twenty meters until the most dense parts are behind me, but these meters are intense.

Approximately 30 meters from the hash, I encounter blackberries. Not your nice, domesticated blackberries, wild ones. Anyone who has encountered blackberries in the wild like this remembers two things: First, they are huge and dense, and second, they are thorny. This patch of blackberries easily reaches up to my chest, so I have to duck below the highest and step over the lower tendrils - only to be caught somewhere with my cloths in the brambles. They untie both of my shoes - a funny thing to fix while you're standing waist-deep in some thorny tendrils - and make progress slow (and painful!). 20 meters left. I turn towards a less dense part of the almost jungle-like plant structure. No, wrong way, I'm back at 30 meters now. So the other way round. It takes me ~40 mins of fighting from leaving my path at 100 meters to now being ~15 meters to the hash.

And then, something miraculous happens: I step over a last set of brambles, and break onto a path. A path that I didn't know existed. A path that isn't marked in OSM either. But a path - and a path that leads in the correct direction! I follow that path and within seconds I reach the hash. Too exhausted with my previous fight with mother nature, I settle with a 3 meter reading for my proof today. I'm close enough, I'm inside the uncertainty circle - and I would just have to wander around a bit until I get a lucky reading - and I still have to get back to Unterbiebert. I'm not in a rush - it's currently 9:40 am, and I don't have to start hiking back until 11 am, but I am definitely aware of it, both on timing and on raw distance to cover.

I end up walking two bus stops over to Andorf - to pass the time until my bus home. I arrive there at 11 am, wait patiently almost an hour for my bus home, and can now, for the first time, successfully claim two hashes consecutively. Let's see how long this streak will go - currently I still have vacation, so I can spend my days hashing. Let's see if tomorrow is also within reach.