We had cast an eye on the Harzer-Hexenstieg standard point-to-point route for quite a while now and then finally decided to go for it on the day of the famous Walpurgis night in the Harz Mountains. So we started our day at 06:24 am in Osterode am Harz with a lot of food and water in our bags since we wanted to go unsupported. The bags were pretty heavy but we were optimistic that they would obviously lose weight after a few hours. With a lot of ascend on the first Kilometers already we had to rearrange our bags a bit since it was not very comfortable. The weather was close to perfect with approx 8-10 degrees Celcius until it started to drizzle for about 2 hours with a cold chill. In our heads the worst part would be climbing the Brocken (which we have done a thousand times probably) and after that it would be a lot of downhill and easier terrain. Not even close. We felt quite exhausted already when we arrived at the peak and couldn´t pick up our planned pace - so things were going pretty slowly from here. While we always had enough of food (dried bananas, crackers, dates, figs, self baked bread) we had to get water every other our from the rivers and small streams along the route (the small and big rivers were following us probably about 70% of the track!). The Lifestraw should probably be also a member of this team for the FKT because we couldn´t have done it without it. We filled our bottles at the streams and wells and drank from them with the lifestraw, which filters out everything and you get crystal clear, cold water. Just amazing - also really gives you another relationship to running water in the nature when you are that dependent from it. Still, we were not in the best mood when we had to climb several smaller ascends at around km 70-75 and also the track was pretty hard to run since to all the fallen trees, a lot of mud and just very technical paths. So we made our way through all of it, complaining a lot but still cracking jokes and being distracted by some hikers dressed up as witches or devils because of the Walpurgis night. After almost 14 hours we arrived in Thale and made our way to the main station through a lot people who were celebrating the night. From there Fabian´s wife picked us up gave us a ride home. Best. Day. Ever. :-)