2023-09-03 49 10

Location

In the woods near Egersdorf

Participants

Group 1:

Torodeas (talk)
Torodeas' mum

Group 2:

Gefrierbrand
Santu
Pedro the dog

Plans

Torodeas

The hash is less than 15 minutes from the Egersdorf train station, but Torodeas (talk) is going to try to walk there the whole way, and use the train stop to go back. Maybe even combine it with another Tron achievement try, starting from the train stop Alte Veste.

Santu & Gefrierbrand

We didn't really plan this one, just noticed it was close to our path and went for it.

Expedition

Torodeas

It's a very nice Sunday when I start preparing for my ~10km hike to the hash and the Egersdorf train station. Unexpectedly, my mom asks me if she can join me on my hike. I told her yesterday I would want to do a 10km trip, but I never expected this kind of response.

So now the two of us start at the Alte Veste train station (another good reason apart from privacy to start these expeditions at train stations - others can hop on easily). We start by walking down to the canal, roughly North-West until we turn left onto the street that will lead us into the forest. It's the same forest the hash is in, and we get to enter it quite quickly. Even so, there's still a lot of distance left.

Now my paranoia for the Tron achievement hits again. I am close to home, but I don't know all of these paths by heart. I have to stay on northerly paths to avoid getting too far east without an option to get to the hash and back to the Egersdorf train stop without crossing my tracks.

That's why the tracklog starts to show these northerly excursions from the main walk way straight ahead I originally planed for: Suddenly, there are two different paths both indicating a hiking trail to Egersdorf. So we take the northern option. But then I notice we are getting close to the edge of the forest, we turn southwards again, even a bit eastwards, get back to the other path and follow that one for a bit. Always carefully avoiding to have to turn around or cross our own paths.

In the end, we do get close to the hash on the path I wanted to go on: A path that starts out in northerly direction, gradually turning westwards and getting as close as 20 meters to the hash. We leave the path a bit early to avoid having to cross our tracks if we overshoot, and enter dense wild blueberry bushes with a few blackberries. Interestingly, the blueberries end just before we get to the hash. We arrive at the hash approximately quarter past four. It would have been a perfect little picnic-spot, but we didn't bring any. Instead we leave to the west - again crossing a new set of blueberry bushes - and start the remaining trip to the Egersdorf train station.

My previous Tron attempt was spoiled by the fact that train stations can be unforgiving when it comes to crossing your own path. So I needed not only to get to the train station, but also do it in a way that doesn't involve crossing my path. Sadly, Egersdorf station is bad for this: Its platform sits on the southern side of the tracks which is quite inconvenient when approaching from the north. But don't worry! There's a track crossing at the station. It's at the eastward facing exit of the station, making it - fully unusable. The train will have to leave eastwards and will cross your path. Instead I went for the other track crossings in Egersdorf, approximately 800 meters to the west. It's a 1.6 km detour, but I'll take it to ensure my Tron run. You can see it clearly on the tracker.

While waiting for the train home, and on the train itself, the poor quality of the tracker shows. It shows me moving a lot while waiting half an hour for the train (I didn't, I just sat there), and it even cuts out early before reaching the final stop 'Alte Veste'. Unlucky me, but this time I am claiming the Tron. Trains happen to follow quite predictable lines (tracks) and it is easy to see that the train wouldn't cross my path until reaching my final stop. So I'll count this as a success.