katikaa Traveled to Frankfurt for work this week and already when I knew I was going there I started looking around the trails and high places around the city thinking I will go for a run. Found this peak called Alt König where you can find remains of Celtic ring wall and it was reachable by public transport on the west side of the city around 832 meters above sea level.
A Finn who is practicing for Kilimanjaro must take every chance she gets to climb anything higher than 100 meters so I decided to go for it. I had a really early flight so headed straight towards Oberursel/Hohemark from hotel with tram and two different trains, underground U and commuter train line S. I did not have to wait for the next one for two long so public transport worked perfectly.
There were so many paths going across the slope that it was actually hard to choose which one to take so I just chose random trails going up taking short cuts here and there. There were different kind of paths up either gravel, grass or clay/rocky path.
Grass road 
Gravel road 
Clay/rocky steeper path up 
Rocky path at the top over one of the Celtic ring walls
Once you get to the top it has soft and nice surface and birds which made quite a lot of noise. Saw one falcon flying so not sure if it was them or some other species as I am not that familiar with birds. Anyway the top seemed to have it’s own little world and the vegetation was a bit different.
Terrain was very soft bark and it smelled like it is about to catch fire any minute.
Found the top easily as there was this “throne” bench and chair and above it read on a plaque “Alt König”. Assumed this was the highest point so sat for a while, had a drink of water and took a few pictures.
There was a lot of vegetation and trees on the slopes so I could not really find a spot to get a shot towards the city but managed to get a few pictures with nice view.
Because my HR monitor wrist band broke and it is being repaired, I have had to use my mobile and just HR belt to track my sports for a few days. It seemed that using tracking app, gps or something else drained my battery completely and had only 20% left at the top.
Decided not to take the same route, but “shortest” so pretty much straight down. Managed to get really good speed here and there. Very good descent practice for Kilimanjaro! Then noticed my mobile battery had only about 5% left so quickly checked approximate location where I should be heading and then it died. I did not get the last 2 kilometers recorded, but kept my course and found my way back to the U train, S train and to the right tram and hotel. Who needs a mobile phone or a map anyway!
My stop at the mountain was very short up and down around 1 hour and 50 minutes and distance around 8,7 kilometers hence did not have time to enjoy the nature more. This was intended to be a clear mountain running exercise more than recreational visit anyway. From Hohemark U train station it was about 1 kilometer to the forest border where I put the tracking on so It would have been 10 kilometers altogether if you start from the station.
Altitude was around 383 meters where I started recording and top was 836 meters. Max speed was 5:08/km so I really sprinted down at and was afraid with all the rocks and fairly steep decline that I would trip on my own legs but managed to concentrate, core strong and concentrate even a bit more! Toes did hurt a bit as I should have tightened my laces so that my trail running shoes would not have slid down all the time…
Afterwards I could definitely feel the fast decline on my knees and hips, but the exercise itself was really good and I only felt it for the next day or so which is normal.
The paths up are really good in the beginning and you can choose one that is not so steep, but generally there is quite a lot of steady incline and at the end it is a bit rocky. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to challenge themselves a bit, but cannot do very steep inclines.
The forest is also filled with mountain bike tracks so if that is your thing this is your place!
