The Weserberglandweg is a 225 km trail that runs from Hann Münden to Porta Westfalica following the Weser River in central Germany. It is not among the most well-known long-distance trails in Germany, but it is beautiful nonetheless. Also, due to it’s little-known status, the trail is remote and peaceful. We encountered few other hikers during our seven days (split across three weekends) on the trail. Highlights of the Weserbergland include the beautiful small city of Hann Münden, where to trail starts, the Sababurg Castle that is said to have inspired the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, and the meandering Weser river that the trail follows. The trail is also plagued by the usual not-so-beautiful aspects of hiking in Germany, including nowhere to camp, passing through cities, logging along the route, gravel road walking, and a large nuclear power plant. Overall we thought the trail was beautiful to hike, especially the Southern and Northern parts of it.
Planning
- Camping: Wild camping is possible, but infrequent huts make it more difficult than elsewhere in Germany. We looked for huts, but ended up using our tent twice on this trail. The lack of huts was most pronounced on the Northernmost section of the trail.
- Transport: Getting to/from the trail is easy. Hann Münden (Southern terminus) is a relatively large town, as is Porta Wesfalica (Northern terminus). There are many towns with train and/or bus service along the route. We were able to take trains to/from each of our starting and stopping cities (Hann Münden, Bad Karlshafen, Hehlen, and Porta Westfalica).
- Navigation: The trail is reasonably well-marked. Nevertheless, we loaded the GPS route onto our phones ahead of time and used them for navigation. This worked perfectly.
- Services: Towns are present along the route, so stopping for coffee/beer/restaurant/groceries is possible. Just remember — almost everything except restaurants is closed on Sundays in Germany!
- Water: We found no shortage of water along the route. The water wasn’t too mucky or gross, so our Sawyer Squeeze worked great to make it drinkable.
Daily Trail Journals
Day 1 – June 16th, 2019 – 34 miles (54 km) – Day Hike
We set out to do a big day on the Weserbergland Weg. This is the German long-trail closest to Göttingen, so we decided that we should prioritize getting it hiked soon. The trail was absolutely beautiful. It was mostly in the forest and on dirt paths, which is contrary to many of the other German trails we have hiked so far. Often, the Rennsteig and the Harzer Hexenstieg followed gravel roads and weaved through villages. This trail did too, but much less. We started the hike at the Southern Terminus in the city Hann Münden, which was a beautiful old half-timbered German city. We hiked past an aid station for a Nordic walking event… We tried to tell them we weren’t participants, but since we were using hiking sticks they still insisted on giving us apple juice and fruit 🙂 We hiked past a castle that is supposed to be where Sleeping Beauty slept. Then we continued on through a lot of clear-cut forests which were not so nice. In the end, we hiked 35 miles today, which is a big number. We almost missed the last train of the day back to Göttingen, so we did a little bit of running towards the end. We’re pooped!
-Tim
Weserberglandweg starts where the Fulda & Werra Rivers become the Weser River 
Sleeping Beauty Castle 
Wet feet
Day 2 – June 21st, 2019 – 6 miles (10 km)
Today we headed back to the Weserberglandweg after work. We wanted to get out and celebrate the summer solstice by sleeping outside. We got to the town of Bad Karlshafen just after 6 by train. We hiked backwards to hit some of the trail we missed last Sunday when we were running to catch the last train of the day. I had a bit of a headache all day. When we got to the top of the first climb a few km in, I laid down for a bit while Tim called his sister. Then when I got up to start going again, I threw up. Not fun! We continued hiking very slow, until we got to a hut. I went straight to bed. It was an awesome hut with a nice view. The hiking part is a bit hazy in my mind, but we somehow made 10 km. Sunrise was 5:02 and sunset was 9:42. 16 hours and 40 minutes of sunlight. That’s a lot!
-Renee
Day 3 – June 22nd, 2019 – 26 miles (41 km)
When we woke up this morning Renee was healed. It was very strange how quickly she got sick and better, but it made for a pleasant morning enjoying coffee in our hut. We hit the trail and enjoyed a mix of single-track hiking routes and few gravel roads. At first there was lots of water, so we didn’t fill up much extra, but then we went through a dry spell with absolutely none when we needed it. We finally hit a small creek that was dark brown with tannens, but we drank it anyway (after filtering) and felt much better. Shortly after that we hiked past a food truck where we ordered fries and orange juice (they didn’t sell beer). We could have skipped the brown water altogether. Oh well. We hiked on and had a big climb toward the end of the day. At the top we hiked along a ridge toward what we hoped would be a hut, but our map was inconclusive. We could hear an announcer from a sports event in a distant city, so we joked that if there is a hut it should face the other side of the ridge. That would give us a view and silence. Sure enough, we found a hut situated toward an empty valley instead of toward the city in the distance. Nice. We ate taco pasta for dinner. Yum!
-Tim
Day 4 – June 23rd, 2019 – 22 miles (36 km)
Today we hiked another big day. We are having fun pushing ourselves on this trail to see how fast we can get it done. There was a lot of bushwhacking through tall grass next to farm fields. We hiked to the town of Hehlen where we had 2.5 hours to get home via a bus and two trains. After we got home, Tim found 5 deer ticks attached to his butt while he was taking a shower.
-Renee
Day 5 – June 28th, 2019 – 11 miles (17 km)
We left Göttingen on the 3:07 train and got to Hehlen around 5:30pm to continue our hike. The trail wandered between farm fields and forest. It wasn’t particularly pretty today, but it was nice enough. We stopped for a snack of bread, figs, and bagel chips at the top of a hill. Then we hiked on and before we realized it it was 9! The sun sets so late in Germany that time can surprise you if you aren’t paying attention. We started looking for a hut but found none, so instead we found a clear spot on a hill above the trail and set up camp. We thought about cowboy camping but decided against it. Instead we are using our rain fly, ground cloth, and poles, but we left the tent body at home. It is working well, and most importantly it should prevent condensation overnight. By the time we finished our yummy curry-rice dinner it was 10:30. At that point the sun had been set for 45 minutes, but there was still enough light to see fine. Crazy!
-Tim
Day 6 – June 29th, 2019 – 31 miles (50 km)
As we were going to bed last night, there were lots of fireflies. They were the first fireflies we’ve seen this season. We have also seen a fox, some deer, and lots of empty snail shells so far on the Weserberglandweg.
-Renee
Day 7 – June 30th, 2019 – 26 miles (42 km) – The End!
Last night we cowboy camped and we woke up before midnight after hearing noises and worrying that hunters were out. They weren’t, but we slept less than perfect. The forecast was sunny and 35 C (~95 F), so we started early. The morning was great–nice weather. We had coffee #1 at camp and coffee #2 at the first water source on the trail. We did 20k (12.4 miles) before 12 noon, which was a nice throwback to the ’12 by 12′ that we always tried to do on our PCT hike and was good motivation to beat the heat. After noon it heated up a lot, but we kept pushing along and eventually made it to the finish in Porta Westfalica. Aside from the heat, the trail was beautiful today. It was almost completely forested, and it alternated between single track hiking trails and gravel forest roads. Both were nice to hike on. There was very little logging in this stretch of the trail, and sections of the forest were downright beautiful. Our conclusion is that the southern and northern parts of the Weserberglandweg are beautiful, and the middle 100k is a sub-par attempt to stitch these sections together. Still, all around the trail was well worth hiking, and we are happy to have polished off all 225 km in 2.5 weekends… It was quite a push, and we may try to hike slightly fewer miles on weekend trips in the future.
-Tim
