Eschenberg-Kyburg, August 6, 2002

Plunge into a different world. Put the lightweight marathon shoes away, Dobb spikes are needed now. The mighty forest carpet between Weisslingen in the south and the city of Winterthur in the north seems like a trip through Switzerland. Deep ditches and steep slopes remind us to the Emmental: Sliding, fighting and choosing routes. The gentle hills and flat parts in the northern part, however, represent the typical Midland, as we know it from everywhere between Lake Geneva and Lake Constance. Typically Midland. We all know what this means: Nice, open and fast parts can be found, but also grown and thickly grown light-flooded spots. Thorns aggressively oppose the first to arrive.

The Toss river meanders on the bottom of a more than 100-meter deep valley across the area of the long-distance competition to be held in 365 days. The river is spanned with three bridges. There is quite an amount of water around. Not only in the Toss river. Ditches, springs and marshy stripes make a gurgling sound under the shoes. These waters feed high weeds, quickly growing blossom plants and many shrubs and bushes. Eschenberg means mountain of the ash trees. Agreed, there are ash trees too, but mostly there are young beech trees. Why then Eschenberg and not Buchenberg?

Here too we meet many different people. They hike across the forest on a well-established network of trails by bike or on foot. A zoo and the castle of Kyburg attract other kind of people as well. For hundreds of years the castle has been sitting proudly on 630 meters above sea level and overlooking the by far largest area of the WOC 2003. It is looking out for the new long-distance world champions, which have to be from the kind of high-endurance people.

Posted: 2003-02-13 19:36:06