ABOUT HYDRA AS A TRAIL
Distance, km:
Full - 1700 (finish in Druskininkai, Lithuania)
Medium - 1000 (finish in Zarasai, Lithuania)
Beginner - 500 (finish in Valga, Estonia, close to Valka, Latvia)
Ascent, m:
Full - 14000
Medium - 8000
Beginner - 4000
Length, days:
Full - up to 10
Medium - up to 6
Beginner - up to 3
Hydra Epic trail – a creation that took us 16 years to piece together. It took a lot of adventures, searches, flat tires, worn out shoes and smiles along the process. Our team wants to extend a big thank you to all the volunteers and participants that helped us with it.
Estonia:
Start is at Tartumaa Sports Complex some 30km away from Tartu, second biggest Estonia’s city.
The route follows south/south-east and shares most of its first kilometers with famous Tartu marathon track.
In Estonia track mostly follows roads and hiking paths of Estonian forest service (“RMK”), which follows Latvian-Estonian border quite closely, sometimes even peaking into Latvia. Route winds through famous Haanja nature park until it reaches Valga city.
Latvia:
Track follows scenic river of Gauja through its regional park and continues all the way up to capital city Riga. The views from the river banks are fascinating and some say it's worth even stopping to admire those green foresty canyons. After leaving Riga, the track reaches biggest Latvian river Daugava, then at some point jumps to border forest and crosses Latvian-Lithuanian border on a hanging bridge over border river Nemunėlis.
Lithuania:
Route keeps on extending along the Lithuanian-Latvian border gently crossing nice Lithuanian country towns. The trail weaves through many nature parks, the famous Labanoras and Gražutė regional parks just to mention a few of them. Ends in Druskininkai city, near the border of Poland and Belarus. The route closely hugs the rivers of Žeimena, Neris and Lithuania's river father - Nemunas - biggest river in Lithuania.
In this manner Hydra Epic trail traverses Baltic countries from north to south.
The route is varied and has to offer technical cross country singletracks, long fast gravel sections and everchanging forest roads which go through most beautiful parts of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Along the way you will have an opportunity to visit a handful of the Baltic States' cities: Kaunas, Vilnius, Zarasai, Riga, Sigulda, Cesis, Valmiera and etc.
We hope you'll be fascinated as we are of how close some of the singletracks appear to be near the city centers and how beautiful and untouched nature is in Baltic states!
Along the route you will have to check in at 4 checkpoints to not to loose the track of time while enjoying the natural sceneries. Our volunteers will stamp your checkpoint card and will do their best to spirit you up, no matter in what condition you might occur.
Our team wishes all the participants the best in exploring natural serenity of Baltic States and at the same time putting a challenge in front of themselves.