January Walks

People think I'm a little bit crazy to be out here. They’re not wrong. When I leave the house in the morning, it is 22 degrees F (-7 C), so even though I am wearing five layers, I can feel the chill creep down my neck and attempt to crack my lips. The haze is thick over Kandern, but I actually emerge from it rather quickly on the first uphill. My heart pumping, I look out over the sleepy village before turning south, deeper into the woods. The sun is just lighting up the crowns of the trees, and it feels a bit less like crazy and a bit more like magic.

The world is dressed in ice crystals. I pause often to try to capture it in photograph, but none will ever do it justice. The ground is so hard, I can practically walk over any part of it that I want to. At one point, a mysterious strand of Caution tape that is wrapped in a square on the high embankment beckons me to clamber up and see what it’s protecting. A giant rectangle-shaped hole is dug roughly six feet deep, which feels suspicious, but I decide to listen to the crunch of the frost rather than to wonder about bodies. 

The sun finally emerges over the crest and filters through the Black Forest trees, its shadows casting long and straight across my footpath. There aren’t many birds awake, merely a lone woodpecker who keeps German work hours and seems to feel the urgency to finish before noon. The trickle of water surprises me since most of the world is frozen, but then I notice that the liquid flows beneath a layer of ice in the ditch. I continue to crunch my way south, squinting whenever the trees give way to a clearing or a vineyard.

When the castle comes into view, the frosted stones catch my breath. White over yellow with the Baden flag fluttering softly in the breeze - it’s stunning. And while I might say that about most castles, this one has found a special place in my heart over time, the marker that my morning hike is nearing its finale, the warm cup of coffee nearly visible now as I stand on the castle hill and look down into Lörrach. My cheeks are burned pink in the selfie, and somehow I'm both warm from walking and still cold at the same time. I have an hour before the basketball game starts that I came for, and even though it’s going to take the rest of the day to fully warm up, every step was worth it.