It was raining when Mr. Wanderbär arrived in Marienthal on Thursday afternoon. The day before, a mix of hail and sunshine greeted the bearded hiker in the Palatinate. “Mr. Wanderbär” is the translation of the pseudonym “Mr. Hikingbear “, which the Aachener uses in the social network Instagram (@mr.hikingbear). In real life, the 43-year-old is called Björn Besse. Two weeks ago he set off from Aachen City Hall on a hike that should take him 4,000 kilometers to southern Croatia. He wants to be on the road for five to six months. A dream for which the project manager even quit his job: his employer could only have given him three months off.
“Tinkered my own trail”
What drives the Aachen resident who, despite the corona-related closed campsites – and thus a lack of shower facilities – could not be dissuaded from the adventure? “After my hikes I have always had one question: How about being able to just go on without having to go back to everyday life?” Besse, who has meanwhile looked for some protection from the rain at the church in Marienthal, actually wanted to be on one of the great long-distance hiking trails in America. For example on the 4265 kilometer long Pacific Crest Trail in the western United States, or the 3500 kilometer long Appalachian Trail in the northeast. But then came the pandemic. “The trip would have hung by a thread. So I made my own trail. “
This leads the 43-year-old from his hometown Aachen to Vienna, where his girlfriend lives. Because the 1,600 kilometers to get there are too short for a five to six month hike, the next step is: across Austria, along the Italian-Slovenian border to the southernmost tip of Croatia. “If I stick to the route – and detours rather than shortcuts have been planned so far – I’ll get 4011 kilometers, 112,640 meters up and 113,710 meters down.”
About 40 kilometers of his trail lead the hiker through the Donnersbergkreis because he follows the European long-distance hiking trail E8 for the section to Vienna. It stretches for 7,500 kilometers from Ireland to Bulgaria, leads through ten European countries – and in Germany also through the Palatinate: from Obermoschel via Marienthal, Dannenfels, Bolanden and Albisheim to Zellertal-Niefernheim, from where the route continues to Worms .
No place to sleep for the night yet
“The area here is great,” says Besse in the shelter of the Marienthal Church. Whereby he can only talk about ways and prospects. People hardly met him in the rain, the inns are closed. For dinner there will be a pasta dish with bacon and cream sauce – one that all you have to do is pour hot water over it. Besse does not yet have a place to sleep for the night. “Perhaps one of my helpers can pick me up in Dannenfels and take me to Worms,” he ponders. There he could pitch his tent in a private garden.
For Besse, helpers are people who have offered him support for his project via the social network Facebook: a shower, electricity for his cell phone, a place to sleep or to dry the tent and sleeping bag. Sometimes the helpers hike with you for a while. “It’s fascinating how well-disposed people approach me.”
Hope for open campsites in Austria
The people who follow the wandering bear in the social networks also seem open-minded towards it Donation project to be: Already 950 euros were raised in the first few weeks. It should be 10,000 euros by September. The Aachen resident wants to support two heart projects in Croatia: a bear refuge in a Croatian mountain village and the expansion of a still quite new hiking trail in Koatia, the Via Adriatica Trail, with path markings and shelters.
Björn Besse’s network of helpers, which is also fed via an online portal on which private individuals offer their garden as a camp site for one night, currently extends as far as the border to Austria. “After that it will be thin,” says the Aachener, who follows the corona rules in Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia very closely. How does it go on then? “I’m still counting on the campsites in Austria to open again.”
In the Palatinate, the question of sleeping space has meanwhile been resolved differently than expected: On Friday morning, Besse published a photo of the cloud-covered roebuck rock. Worms can probably wait another day.
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