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Journal: |
I slept well in the dormitory room I had to myself and had
breakfast at 7am and was on my way before 8am. After a
discussion with two women at the Hutte who had hiked in the way I
planned to go today, I decided to stick to the Via Alpina as
originally intended and assume the snow wouldn't be too bad.
The day's hiking started with a long descent of about 800m along a
stony 4WD track that had me wishing for flat or uphill after half an
hour. The weather was strange with fog everywhere (you could
see it forming over snowfields) spoiling the views, although it was
quite warm for so early in the morning. The end of the descent
proved to be the lowest point for the day and the trail then
followed a pretty river upstream, past a fantastic adventure park
set up over spectacular rapids, and up to the village of Schrocken.
It seemed quite small with no shops and I found a bench outside the
350-y-o church next to a drinking fountain and had my morning break.
Then, as I was leaving, I rounded a corner and, to my pleasant
surprise, found a very small supermarket where I bought a couple of
salami rolls for lunch and replenished by biscuit and Coke supplies.
Then it was steadily uphill, firstly along a back road through a
forest, and then later on a farm track through pastures with cows
and goats, past some old farmhouses. After the farmland the
trail entered some kind of alpine preserve made very atmospheric by
the rolling mist, with green grass, some small lakes and lots of
wildflowers. The path was very well-maintained and there were
quite a lot of day-hikers out, many of them elderly (i.e., older
than me). The alpine preserve ended at Hochtannbergpass
(1676m) where there were some ski-lifts and parking areas and I
found myself a bench and had lunch. The wind was cool and I
put on a jacket. There was a road through the pass with the
usual touring motorbikes, tractors, tour buses and a couple of
cold-looking cyclists passing through while I ate. Just before
I was to leave, I felt a few spots of rain and so put on my pack
raincover and gaiters. Then, as I passed a bus stop a little
further up the road, I noticed that the fog had become a lot
heavier, and I decided, in case the weather closed in and knowing I
was heading for some wild country around 2000m, that it might be
handy to have a GPS track for the afternoon's route on my GPS.
Of course, that meant unpacking my laptop and doing some quick file
transfers in the shelter as the rain spots became heavier. I
packed up again and started my afternoon with a 350m steep ascent up
a rocky trail. An hour later, when the trail was following a
rocky ridge, the rain arrived in earnest, the fog closed in, and
thunder and lightning added to the drama. As suspected, there
was a lot of snow along the trail and it frequently became very
difficult to see where the track went. I was so glad I had
loaded the GPS track in, because every time I feared I had lost the
trail, I was relatively easily able to find way way back to it.
Although there was a lot of snow and sometimes the slopes were quite
steep, the snow was soft and the consequences of a fall, even if it
meant a long slide, were probably not going to be serious. The
miserable weather continued for about two hours and I was starting
to get quite cold, but knew that I was less than an hour from
Mindelheimer Hutte, so kept going. For the last 20 minutes,
the weather cleared a bit and I could start to see some of the
surrounding mountains.
I think I'm now back in Germany for a
little while. The Hutte is quite large, sleeping over 100, but
there's only about a dozen people here, and I'm sharing my dormitory
with two couples (one may be father/daughter...it's hard to tell).
I have a lot of wet smelly gear, but there's no where to really wash
and dry it given the weather. No showers here, so just a quick
wipe down with a flannel and cold water. They have a wood
burning stove heating the common room and dinner was cheap, good and
plentiful.
Later the weather cleared considerably and the
surrounding scenery has revealed itself to be quite spectacular.
Pity I missed so much of it today, but I knew there would be
frequent bad weather days in the Alps and I haven't done too badly.
Looking forward to an easier day tomorrow and a town tomorrow night.
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