RIDE MOTORRAD UNTERWEGS NO 14 NATIONALPARK-RUNDE BORN TO BE WALD

The forest is a special place. And this is a special forest. The Bavarian Forest is home to Germany's first national park. Since 1970, nature has been allowed to be nature again here, wilderness has been allowed to spread once more. An excursion with two Harleys into the countryside, fully adapted with organic petrol and green electricity.

TEXT: Michael Orth FOTOS: Arturo Rivas

The road to Zwieslerwaldhaus leads gently uphill. A carpet of moss lies lush and high and soft between the trees. The trunks are so dense in some places that the view only extends ten or 20 meters before the green forest wall closes in. The air is much cooler here than where the sun reaches down to the asphalt on the main road. It smells fresh like spruce and turpentine like fir resin and also like dark, damp earth.

Two thin girls rollerblade on spindly legs. It's not far now. We pass a few houses and soon turn left behind the oldest inn in the Bavarian Forest. Then, where the last toilet before the primeval forest stands between storm-bent trees at the Brechhäuslau parking lot, it's the end. Or does it begin? That's a question of perspective. That's what it's all about. Because where the road ends, the wilderness begins, the wilderness of Germany's oldest national park, the Bavarian Forest National Park. At the end of the 1960s, the conservationist Hubert Weinzierl and the zoologist and wildlife filmmaker Bernhard Grzimek came up with the idea that it might be time for a national park in Germany too. At that time, the world's first national park, Yellowstone in the USA, was already over 80 years old. Not an entirely new idea. But in Germany at the time, it was still a revolutionary and, as it were, crazy idea: that nature should develop according to its own laws and that humans should stay out of it with their demands and needs. This is not at all easy for man. He doesn't like to stay out of it because he thinks that everything belongs to him anyway, because he believes that he is part of nature insofar as he can control and exploit it and subject it to his rules. Only one percent of Europe's land area, a single percent, is still free from its influence.

On the other hand, there is a lot of mystification. The German forest, in particular, has always been associated with so many things, at least since Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. In the forest there is either rustling or peace above all treetops. It is a German topos, a highly charged, not to say overcharged place, transfigured like a fairy tale by poets and thinkers and cranks as a mysterious embodiment of the anti-urban, as a counter-concept to the objectification of civilization, as a place of healing and knowledge, where you can escape the grip of modernity and find yourself again by bathing in the forest. Or you can lose yourself in the undergrowth of convoluted ideas.

Only to be quickly overtaken by reality at the Großer Arbersee. What the poor ducks don't have to watch there. Excursionists of all ages, wearing squeaky checked functional shirts and carrying rucksacks and binoculars, strutting along the lakeside paths, enjoying pedal boats in the company of their children, sipping diet sodas or umbrella-covered mixed drinks in deckchairs, half-strong jumping jacks roaring along the road in their bangers, and hordes of motorcyclists circling the Großer Arber every week in search of enlightenment in this paradise of bends. But right now, it's Wednesday and still early, there are only a few on the road. One of them, who has just parked his Guzzi on the road, wants to know if it's “that electric Harley”. He means the LiveWire, and yes, it is that electric Harley. Thorsten Ihlo built the other one a few years ago: Shovelhead, rigid frame from 1952, 1400 cubic meters, sharp camshafts and what not. The evening before, it was given a very special cocktail for the National Park tour: regenerative fuel from the KIT ReFuels project in Karlsruhe. With the green fuel made from biomass, which is otherwise only used for research purposes, it is no less environmentally friendly and CO₂-neutral than the LiveWire. “The old Zossen” is sustainable anyway. Will the E-Harley still be running in 70 years?

Does that play a role? Do we humans still have a role to play? Could it be a different one than it is today, a more modest one, not a self-important monologue perched on a throne that we have placed in the middle of the stage with our own hands? We could start rehearsing the new role immediately. There are enough teachers. “People pay for the increase of their power with alienation from that over which they exercise power”, wrote Horkheimer and Adorno 75 years ago in the ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’, referring to nature, both internal and external. As early as 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson argued in his essay “Nature” that we should strive for a direct experience and a real perception of nature, instead of always just bringing our understanding or our desires into it. The aesthetics of nature are not limited to the feeling of well-being that arises when contemplating its beauty. Experience and sensual experience are more important for its understanding than knowing facts, Emerson said. His friend Thoreau stated: “We are in the habit of overestimating the importance of our works. And yet. How many things happen without us doing anything?” He wanted to look for the roots of true life in the forest, in untouched nature, because all forms of vitality can be found there. In the Bavarian Forest, for example, the pug bat, grouse, lynxes, beavers, the shag beetle and the occasional moose that come over from the Czech Republic; epiphytic mosses, fescue moors, the blue tarantula, the many-part moonwort, the green goblin moss, the lemon-yellow tramete and the Woid Woife. His real name is Wolfgang Schreil and he has made an old caravan somewhere in the forest his “Hoamatl”, his home. He doesn't live there. But he feels at home there. Woid Woife says things like: “Nothing is foreign to me out here. I feel at home in nature. Seeing how the cycles of life come full circle helps me a lot, it brings me peace. No matter where you are in the forest, there is always something beautiful to discover.” Woife has already written books about how to discover and experience “the secrets of the forest and the power of nature”. There is no question of understanding. “We don't know,” he says, adjusting his hat, ”but we still judge from morning to night. Nature is the simplest and most beautiful world there is if we don't judge and instead take off the crown of creation.” And then he suddenly looks to the side, raises a finger briskly and says: “Düt, düt, düt!”

A bullfinch. The Woid Woife recognizes it immediately amidst all the other chirping, pauses and says: “It's about to come around, then you'll see it here on the branch.” And that's exactly what happens, and the Woid Woife is delighted. Not because he was right, but because of the bullfinch. The joy accompanies the rest of the way along the national park and every now and then a little way in. But this is rarely possible. Most of the few roads in the national park are closed or can only be used early in the morning and in the evening. The path up to Waldhäuser is an exception. And as nice as it is to drive along there at a leisurely pace, finally emerging from the dense canopy of leaves and having a clear conscience because the LiveWire is humming with green electricity and the Shovelhead is shooting with biofuel, the conversation with Woid Woife is still vivid in my memory as the view stretches over the mountain ranges as far as the Great Rachel. His openness, his optimism and his view of things, his commitment to the national park and to wilderness. Wilderness means that we humans do not intervene and let things take their course, as nature dictates. “What we perceive as normal is nothing more than the blink of an eye. In just 100 or 150 years, we humans have changed nature, the whole world, in such a way that everything should be geared towards us. But it's not right what we do and how we do it.” Some things are: the bread rolls that Carrie, Thorsten's girlfriend and soon to be his wife, had made for us in the morning. “See, that's Carrie,” says Thorsten and shows us the Edding heart on his bag of rolls. We chew and smile silently to ourselves, because sometimes that's all it takes. You could spend the whole day sitting on a fallen tree over a stream not far from Guglöd. But then we wouldn't be able to drive and visit the forest gnome. The forest gnome once studied chemistry and developed dashboard films for the car industry as an engineer. That wasn't his life. His life was the dogs, and they still are today. Together with 48 sled dogs and other dogs, Waldschrat - whose real name is Thomas Gut - and his partner Anke live on the husky farm near Flanitzmühle, where they have been running Germany's first sled dog school for almost 35 years. Although the dogs need the school less than the people who want to handle them. “If they don't accept you,” says Thomas, ”they give you the finger. If you want them to accept you, your personal ambition has no role to play. You have to be able to trust them and they have to be able to trust you. Always,” he adds, ”not just when you're in the real wilderness.” The real wilderness? The forest gnome is unlikely to find it in the national park. Especially as he's not even allowed to drive there with the dogs on the sled. “If it really were wilderness. But nature in the park isn't that yet, and not by a long shot. It's still the remains of a forest, and there are parking lots for tens of thousands of people on the edges. The logical thing would be to have an area where nobody is allowed in.”

But maybe we don't need to. Maybe it's even a good thing that we can learn to encounter nature differently in the national park, to get to know it differently. And ourselves too, at best: as a small part of a context that goes far beyond our greed, our control and regulation mania and also beyond our understanding. For which our intellect is perhaps not the right instrument anyway.

The man with the bird thinks so too. He formulates it differently, but that's what it actually boils down to. The man's name is Dieter Betz, the bird is Burli. Burli is a golden eagle and sits on Dieter's arm in the Grafenwiesen Birds of Prey Park, his heads close together and, man, his beak is so big and he's got quite a hook, and Burli keeps looking like he's in a really, really bad mood. Dieter looks really relaxed when he drops it: “When he grabs it, he's got 180 kilos of pressure on his claws.” You don't just put a dinosaur like that on your arm. Dieter has to grin. “No, it doesn't just sit on your arm. It takes time to tame it, it's called abduction. It takes a lot of time and a lot of trust so that the bird learns that this is a safe place with you.” Dieter scratches Burli's chest: “It only works if you forget your own ego and it's like a tree where it can sit.”

What kind of tree would you be and where would you want to stand if you didn't have to be human? A birch tree wouldn't be bad, in the primeval forest somewhere near Zwieslerwaldhaus, where the moss would lie on your roots like a heavy, damp carpet.

TOUR DURATION:

approx. 3.5 hours (pure travel time)

DANGEROUS ROUTE: 130 km (without loops and detours)

1. From Thenried to Ramsried, there turn right into Ammermühlweg through the forest uphill to Wolframslinde, a few meters back again, then turn right and follow the asphalt road through the forest to Bad Kötzting, at the traffic circle turn left, at Herrenweiher turn right to the bird of prey park Grafenwiesen

2. Along the Weißer Regen to the ST 2140 and 2138, heading east via Arrach, Lam, Lohberg and the Scheiben-Sattel to the Großer Arber and the Arbersee lake further south. Optional: before the Großer Arber, a detour east to Bayerisch Eisenstein and Markt Eisenstein in the Czech Republic. Another option: behind the Arbersee, turn right to Bodenmais and take an extra loop around the Arber via Drachselsried, Arnbruck and Arrach. Or take the same route back and turn sharp right at the junction onto the ST 2137 and continue to the B 11. Two kilometers to the left turn-off “Zwieseler Waldhaus”.

3. On the same road back to the B 11 and the Falkenstein National Park Center, optionally left at “Gasthaus Ludwigs thal” to Schleicher, then back to the B 11, left and left again at the next junction to Oberlindberg mühle. Here, either continue along the edge of the national park to Spiegelhütte and Bu-chenau Castle, crossing the Mühlbach stream again and again via the Oberzwiese-lau golf park to the ST 2132. The route is shorter via Lindberg and Unterzwieselau. Head south on the ST 2132. From Stecher to the Frauenau drinking water valley barrier.

4. For a further detour, follow the left branch to Klingenbrunn station. Or continue on the ST 2132 to Spiegelau. Turn left at the traffic circle and take the national park road. From the Diensthüttenstraße parking lot, the path to the Ra-cheldiensthütte may be used before 8.00 am and after 6.00 pm. Follow this road back to the national park road. Turn left there and soon turn left again following the sign to Guglöd. After Guglöd, turn left and initially along the Kleine Ohe to Waldhäuser. After 4 p.m., you can follow the road behind the hamlet, which leads directly to the Lusen National Park Center. Otherwise, turn around here too. Then turn left at the crossroads onto the national park road and continue to the finish at the national park center.

THE SPECIAL TIP

Walking. Not just to the loo. But for a whole day. It's called hiking. It's the only way to get to the most beautiful places in the national park. You can also take a guided tour, as the rangers know special paths and have amazing things to tell about nature. bayern.de/besucher/fuehrungen

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