Hi! My name's Chris, and I'm hiking the Moselsteig in September 2017. Here's my backstory:
I graduated from UC Berkeley in 1992 and have worked in IT ever since, mostly as a software test engineer... you know, a typical middle class desk job kind of situation. Over the years, that led to, ahem, a distinct lack of physical fitness on my part.
In 2012, I decided that it was time to continue the journey into middle age as Reasonably Fit REI Hiker Dad and not as Fairly Chunky Bearish Fella. My goal was pretty simple: I wanted to get in shape enough to hike the High Sierra Camps in Yosemite. I started with daily walks around the nature trail across from my office, and all was going pretty well until boom, plantar fasciitis. Hello, middle age!
I had to take a break from the walking while waiting for my feet to heal, but my Dad found a great podiatrist in San Diego, I got the PF sorted, and towards the end of the next year I decided it was time to get back on the wagon. Err, the trail.
Dan and I went to New Zealand for a couple of weeks at Christmas - Lake Waikaremoana was a great start, and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing was spectacular even if I had lovely Kiwi grannies asking me if I were quite alright, dearie - but I made it through, flew back to California, and got serious about daily walks combined with longer hikes on the weekend.
I finally made it to the High Sierra Camps on August 15, 2014... it was a blast. It took a few years, but it felt like a hell of an accomplishment to lose a hundred pounds and get fit enough to drag my butt up the mountains of Yosemite.
Now, I'm still not a huge fan of backpacking - I mean, if possible, I'd really rather sleep in some kind of permanent shelter, not a tent - so when my husband announced that he was gonna hike the PCT, my basic reaction was "sounds awesome, go for it, I'll stay at home and take care of the cats." Besides, I kinda had to work, right? 2015 rolled around, Dan headed to Canada, and I kept up the hiking. I dragged Dan off the PCT to hike the Kumano Kodo, I summited San Gorgonio and walked down to the northern terminus of the PCT just to see what it was like. And then shortly before leaving for Torres del Paine, Dan looked up from the newspaper and said, hey, you ever hear about the Moselsteig?
I had not.
I said wait, what? There's a long distance hiking trail in Germany that takes about four weeks and doesn't require any camping at all? In wine country? And with a reasonable chance of the occasional Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen if I do the walk around harvest time?
Awesome.
So here I am. I'm set to leave for Germany in about five weeks: rental car to LAX, Iberia to Madrid to Basel, Flixbus to Mulhouse, TGV to Strasbourg for a quick overnight, then TGV to Luxembourg, bus to Schengen, and then it's across the Mosel on foot to the small hamlet of Perl, which sits on the French-German-Luxemburgish border.
Given that there appears to be a relative lack of decent English-language information regarding the Moselsteig - and for that matter, virtually all of the German long distance hiking trails I've happened across in the meantime - I figured I might as well keep a few notes about my Moselsteig experience here on the off chance that someone will find them helpful (or even just amusing!). So... stay tuned, there's more to come over the next several weeks!