Points of Interest

Ottenhöfen, Black Forest

Around Ottenhöfen, a Black Forest town, some ancient watermills have been restored. A hiking trail connects all of them. Today’s weather was not that great, e.g. too cold for May, and it was a cloudy and windy day. We grabbed the occasion anyway, stuffed eleven people into two cars and entered the black forest, leaving the cars at Ottenhöfen station. Here’s one of the watermills:

Watermill near Ottenhöfen (wikimedia commons, Andreas Frick, public domain)

Meanwhile I know why I’ve been elected to book and drive a van of the local car sharing provider. Along the trail, a lot of fountains are sited, and some of them act as a very special selling point (called »Schnapsbrunnen«). The black forest aborigines place bottles of schnapps in the water, add some drinking glasses and an offertory box. Hikers just serve themselves and leave some money. Needless to say that some of us served themselves very well :) .

Of course I used the occasion for some mapping. Most tracks and ways already have been mapped, but not very well. I added some ways, details along them and fixed some broken crossings. I’ve also modelled the water mill trail for appearance in the hiking and bridle map, but it will take some time until it gets rendered.

Finally we had some coffee at a local restaurant, enjoying local cake. This is a typical black forest cherry cake (»Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte«):

Black Forest cherry cake (»Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte«)

A great trip, and it begun raining just as we returned to the cars. An excellent timing :) .

Frozen Tarn

Every now and then, a mapping trip is not as successful as intended. And so was today’s. Here’s some C code describing my feelings :) :

Some code

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Hiking Trail in the Bienwald

As Daisy had even reached the Upper Rhine Plain, we had some snow for a couple of days. I used the occasion for three nice hiking trips in the Bienwald, mapping grade 4 and 5 tracks, hiking paths and, last but not least, the stream Heilbach and some drains alimenting it:
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Ottertal Fungi

Due to the annual Xmas family meeting I had the occasion to do some further mapping of the lovely Ottertal. Unfortunately my camera failed after I had taken four pictures, but that’s better than nothing :) .

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Brown and brown

Though it was a cloudy (and rainy) day, I needed some compensation for the many extra office hours of the last week. During the winter months, I try to map hiking paths and rivers in the Bienwald, which I cannot map by bike during summer:

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Fungi of the Ottertal - 1

Yesterday we celebrated the 60th birthday of my mother at the village where I grew up. A nice occasion to meet family members and other people I haven’t seen for a very long time.
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Puffball

Though it was cloudy at noon, it was a good decision to do some outdoor mapping. I grabbed some hiking trails around Langenberg. Here’s today’s tour:

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It’s just good luck to live in Karlsruhe, as it is just about 80km/40min by car to get to some typical locations (like the infamous Mummelsee :) .

Day by day, more black forest tracks are being mapped by OSM addicts, but there are still a lot of gaps to fill and refinements are always possible. This weekend I have chosen the area between Seibelseckle and Hinterlangenbach.

Yesterday it began raining while being in the woods. The forecast and some webcam pics fooled me, so there was not much “outcome” concerning geo data. Today, however, it was a wonderful sunny late summer day, even allowing for some nice pictures. Here’s the area:

The track of the recently purchased WBT-201 bluetooth GPS receiver and logger IMO is again not as accurate as it could (respectively should) be. Unfortunately, I left my GPSMap at home, otherwiese I could compare the tracks. I am at least disappointed with its bluetooth reliability. Maemo Mapper often reports that it is looking for a GPS fix. The current position often is far away from the already existing objects, and if you go a way twice, the two tracks often are far apart.

But I’ll better put the typical krautish :) whining aside. So here’s the final drumroll, announcing some of the usual pics.

I really like moss closeups. It just looks a bit unnatural while it is the opposite:

Moss closeup

Even more, though not shot properly:

Moss closeup 2

I’m not the biggest fan of spiders, but I am not a chicken as many other people. I grew up in a rural area, thus being used to all kind of animals:

Spider in Moss

And finally a nice one. I managed to take a closeup of a grasshopper. Unfortunately, I could not remove the grass in front of the lens, as the grasshopper would have escaped:

Grasshopper

The above pictures are not public domain. The copyright is still owned by me, and copying is hereby not allowed except you got my written consent.