There is no need for tourists to bring ropes on this seven-peak hike in the Netherlands
Holland, like the notes, has become “popularized as a plain country full of cheeses and hooves. “
Enthusiasts of the Dutch Mountain Trail, a 63-mile (101 km) hike through seven excellent peaks, two of which are made from ancient mine cuts, just ask, just a little joke, that the world avoids being so narrow-minded.
Emerging from a local branch of an annual festival celebrating cinema and mountain culture around the world, the ‘alpine’ lowland hike was first imagined in 2020 as climate fallout became increasingly transparent and Covid made it difficult to access the most classic European peaks.
“That doesn’t mean flying all over the world to chase your big mountains, but also to take a look at your backyard,” said Toon Hezemans, 60, one of the trail’s creators in southern Limburg, the Netherlands’ southernmost region, which is moving toward Belgium. and Germany
An imagined itinerary and word of mouth did the rest. It was an immediate success. Some 17,000 copies in Dutch and German by a hiking consultant have been sold so far. An English edition will be published in November.
As for the prospective challenge of the lack of genuine mountains in Europe’s flattest country, Hezemans, an artist by profession, defines itself. “It’s very interesting,” he said, mentioning a Hugh Grant comedy, The Englishman Who Climbed a Hill, But Went Down a Mountain.
In the film, Welsh villagers are enraged when English cartographers claim that their “mountain” is a hill, as it does not reach the threshold of 305 metres (1000 ft). Locals build a mound at the top of the summit to fool the system.
For Hezemans and Andrew Davies, 65, their conspirator and translator of the consultant into English, this is not a mountain. “I don’t think it deserves to take 1,000 feet as a definition because the Word in Dutch is berg, which has another definition,” said Davies, who moved from Manchester to the Netherlands 38 years ago.
“It depends on the environment,” Hezemans insisted, as he gazed at the picturesque valleys from a bench in the Eyserberg, a peak about two hundred meters above sea level. “This one in the Himalayas will not be a mountain. But you can see the bell tower of the vijlen church, they call themselves the only mountain village in the Netherlands and have a football team that recently played in the foreign football championship of mountain villages.
With the Alps, it is, he says, a matter of shared views. A mountain is in the eye of the beholder.
“Okay,” he added and continued, “maybe there are no mountains here, but it’s not flat. “
South Limburg is the region of the country, with deep valleys dug through fast-flowing rivers and streams, and the trail crosses borders with Belgium and Germany. You will never be more than six miles from a foreign border.
The hike, which Hezemans says can be arduous in some places, begins at Eygelshoven station, near the town of Kerkrade, with the first goal of reaching the top of Wilhelminaberg, about 225 meters above sea level, an ancient pile of curtains dug from the Wilhelmina coal mine, which operated between 1906 and 1969.
After that, the walker heads to the foothills of the Schneeberg, the point of which is beyond the German border and literally translates to “snowy mountain”. His position on the Dutch Mountain Trail is, Hezemans admitted, a bit misleading.
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Archie Bland and Nimo Omer advise you on the most productive stories and what they mean, of course, every morning of the week.
But the number of seven peaks on the way does not come with Vaalserberg, the meeting point of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and, at 322 meters above sea level, the point of the country. “It’s too touristy,” Hezemans said. So we skipped that and went here to the Eyserberg, where we are now. There is a very beautiful meadow and alpine flowers blooming there.
Then comes Gulperberg (155 meters above sea level): “It is a mountain, with a statue of Mother Mary at the top, overlooking the city of Gulpen, perhaps the maximum mountainous mountain, shaped like a cone. “Then it is Hakkenberg (just over two hundred meters above sea level), where “the half-timbered houses of the valley complete ‘the mountain experience’, according to the hiking guide.
The trail then passes through Belgium, where, during World War I, the border was marked through a 206-mile high-voltage fence, from Vaals to the North Sea coast, known as the “Thread of Death. “The sixth summit is Voerstreek, which in the 1970s was the scene of clashes between French-speakers and Dutch over the language of the region.
“Tourism stored the area, because at some point they learned that the battles didn’t attract tourists,” Hezemans said.
The final summit of the trail is D’n Observant in Maastricht, a pile of synthetic debris from the layers of Sint Pietersberg, which over the centuries has been extensively mined for its loam.
Hezemans admitted he was a little speechless when would-be walkers writing on a compromised Facebook page ask if they deserve to bring ropes or wonder if they deserve to threaten a vertigo outbreak. “I don’t perceive that,” he laughs.
Passing the third day of her hike, Esther Ruijtenbeek, 46, a textile designer, just over 30 miles from the trail, said she had two soft bulbs overnight and the heat proved to be a challenge. But a Dutch mountain trail? I’m a little skeptical,” she laughed. “This is a smart preparation for mountain hiking. “