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Journal: |
I had a good night's sleep and was hiking before 8am, but almost
immediately lost the trail in a large snowfield and wasted about 15
minutes clambering across hillsides and snow patches before finding
it again. The weather was clear and sunny and I cursed my
carelessness. There was less snow as the track gradually
descended, though it remained a "balcony" trail high on the western
side of a deep valley. The views were fantastic and a mountain
hut across the valley at the same altitude seemed very close, though
it probably would have taken about five hours to hike to it.
Around 9am, a helicopter entered the valley and thereafter made
scores of trips from the valley floor up to the hut across the
valley, obviously transporting in supplies for the start of the
hiking season. There seems to be three ways of supplying the
mountain huts - some are accessible via 4WD tracks, some have cable
links to the valley floor (as did Mindelheimer) and some need
helicopters.
Around 11am another helicopter arrived overhead
and spent some time circling (and maybe landing on) a peak way above
me. I don't know what they were doing. Anyway, the
morning passed quite pleasantly on the trail and I stopped for a
break next to Guggersee, a small lake with very clear water.
It was possibly spring-fed because I could see something bubbling up
in the middle. From Guggersee the trail descended very
steeply, often on loose stones, for about 800 vertical metres.
At one point my left foot slipped and my right knee took all the
weight and strain, leaving me with a sore ligament behind the knee
for the rest of the day. Hope it doesn't get worse. By
the end of the descent both knees were screaming "enough!". I
was surprised how many day-hikers I passed on their way up and, when
I reached the valley floor, the tracks and road seemed to be alive
with hikers and cyclists. A car park I passed near a cable car
had hundreds of cars parked and the closer I got to Oberstdorf,
following the Stillach River downstream, the thicker became the
hikers and cyclists. I started to wonder whether it was a
public holiday.
However, when I finally reached Oberstdorf,
which lies in a broad flat valley at 813m, surrounded by impressive
peaks, I found it was almost entirely a vacation town with guest
house after guest house, lots of shops and outdoor gear outlets, and
full of people with backpacks, trekking poles and bikes. I
decided to head for the railway station and found a nearby hotel
around 2pm which is very nice and reasonably-priced but, alas,
doesn't have wi-fi. After a shower and washing out some very
smelly gear I wandered around town for a while. The shoemaker
I found wasn't willing to make a repair to another broken eyelet on
my boot before noon tomorrow and the hairdressers I found all looked
too upmarket for a cheap No. 1 cut, so I didn't solve either of
those problems. It began to thunder and rain around 4pm
and I was glad I wasn't still out hiking.
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