RMK Hiking Routes

RMK is the state forest management centre, and alongside running the forests it maintains what is probably the best free outdoor infrastructure in Europe. Three long hiking routes cross Estonia and all three meet at Aegviidu, roughly in the middle. Together they run well over two thousand kilometres.

What you actually see

• Three long routes - Peraküla-Aegviidu-Ähijärve, Oandu-Aegviidu-Ikla and Penijõe-Aegviidu-Kauksi.
• The ground they cross - coast, bog, pine forest, esker ridges and lake country, waymarked consistently throughout.
• The gradient - gentle, in a country where a hard day means distance rather than climb.
• The free infrastructure - several hundred campfire sites, forest huts, lean-to shelters, dry toilets and stacked firewood through the state forest, some huts bookable and most sites simply used.

When to go

May to June has long light and dry ground, before the worst of the mosquitoes. September to October is the best walking of the year, with colour in the bogs and few insects. February to March turns many sections into ski tracks and opens up the frozen bogs. Early spring meltwater is the thing to plan around, when low-lying sections flood.

Honest expectations

The routes are long and flat. Anyone looking for alpine drama will find endless pine and birch instead, and the reward is solitude and forest rather than views.

The free sites work because people leave them as they found them - carrying rubbish out, using only the firewood provided, and not lighting fires outside the built rings. In dry summers fire bans are declared and enforced.

Nearby

Aegviidu is the natural entry point and is on the Tallinn-Tartu railway. Lahemaa National Park sits directly on the northern end of the Oandu route.