About two feet adventures

Hiking is our passion, adventures on two feet. Discovering small and big things on the paths of the world. Being connected with nature. Keeping life away from the daily hustle and bustle to a minimum. To experience and enjoy the world and nature consciously and truly.

The beginnings

We have been hiking for many years. Mostly it was small hikes like premium circular trails that we completed on a Sunday afternoon. It stayed like that for many years and there was always a dream to overcome this threshold of normal circular trails and enter bigger paths. In 2020, we started to extend our tours and hike our own, self-created routes. First, we wanted to break our own long-standing record of 36 kilometres at a stretch. That happened relatively quickly. The next goals +40 and +50 were achieved hardly later and so our current record is 56 kilometres in one day.

The newly acquired condition now inspired us to tackle the old dream of packing the backpack with tent, sleeping bag and cooker and discovering the landscape over several days at a stretch. Somehow we always lacked the final step to try it out and so we waited far too long to start our current passion - thru-hiking. This term generally describes hiking a long-distance or long-distance trail from start to finish.

The Eifelsteig

We took our first step in 2020 with the Thru-Hike of the Eifelsteig. We walked 319 kilometres at a stretch within 11 days. A completely new dimension of hiking was ahead of us. During the planning, it was clear from the beginning that we would prioritise spending the night in the great outdoors.

Nine nights out of ten, we were lucky enough to have found a refuge at the end of each day to camp in. It was a completely new experience to start the day in the morning with a vague destination in the evening. Does the hut marked on the map really exist? If so, is it perhaps occupied and we have to look for something else? Or will we even get that far? Of course we had our tent with us as an emergency, but we didn't unpack it once. We can only recommend the shelters in the Eifel to every hiker who wants to go on such a tour. They are usually clean and offer a great scenic panorama. If you're lucky, you'll even find huts with a beer fridge embedded in the ground. Open the flap, put a euro in the till and enjoy a well-tempered beer in the evening after a long hike.

Our backpacks were packed to the maximum with the essentials, but also many things that in retrospect turned out to be too heavy and unnecessary. It has to be said that we are travelling with two dogs and of course they also have to be supplied with water and food. So the basic weight without water and provisions was between 10 and 13 kilos. Including the water requirement and provisions for two people plus two dogs on tours longer than 30 kilometres a day in summer, we sometimes had daily starting weights of 18 kilos (Marion) and 20 kilos (Carsten). So backache was not to be avoided and it was a mighty effort to carry this load over several days. Nevertheless, the Eifelsteig was an initial spark and at the end of the tour it was clear that the last 319 kilometres would be the beginning of something completely new. So much for a review of the Eifelsteig, our first Thru-Hike.

Weight reduction

More cross-country hikes followed. At the turn of the year 2020/2021, we spent a few days on the GR6 in the Luberon/France, but with overnight stays in the vehicle. Several stages on the GR5 in Luxembourgwhere we were on the road again overnight at the weekend. In spring 2020 a Thru-Hike of the Palatinate Wine Trail and then spread out over several weekends the Palatinate Forest Trail. We optimised our equipment and looked for ways to reduce weight, especially with regard to hiking with dogs. The omnipresent topic of ultra-light trekking (UL) is of course also driving us forward, but we will not and do not want to achieve a basic backpack weight of a maximum of 5 kilos (definition ultra-light), as we do not want to do without a certain level of comfort, technology and decent care for the dogs. Giving up weight to our dogs has brought us a big step forward. They are fit enough due to many kilometres of walking and quickly got used to their new dog backpacks. Like humans, dogs can carry up to 20% of their own body weight themselves. So we could now give up to three kilos to our companions. An enormous relief for us!

Link: You can find out more about our equipment with weight details here: EQUIPMENT

Current

After long preparations and several months without hiking experiences, we started our big trip in December 2022. This time we got support from our big camper, which will take us to the most beautiful places - also for hiking, but much more than that. We will be on the road for at least 1.5 years. Our itinerary is via France, Spain, Morocco and Portugal over the winter of 2022/2023. In spring we will pay a short visit to Germany again for reorganisation. Then we will seamlessly continue towards Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. In autumn 2023, our route will take us to the Eastern Mediterranean with the Balkans, Greece and Turkey.

Outlook

As we all know, you have many goals in life. Our dream is of course to hike the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail, 4265 km) one day. But we also have smaller visions, such as walking the GR5 in stages from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, the GTA in Italy, or even one or two of the climbs in Germany.