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Journal: |
I seemed to make a bit of a slow start to the day and didn't
start hiking until after 9am. I had detoured a bit to Sand in
Taufers because I thought there would be more accommodation options,
and I paid the price in the first hour of hiking because I had to
climb back up out of the valley to reach Ahornach and rejoin the Via
Alpina. Although overcast, it was humid and I was soon
sweating (I wondered to myself why I bother washing out clothes each
night when, in less than 60 minutes, they seem to be just as sweaty
and smelly as they were at the end of the previous day!).
Nevertheless the good trail through the pine forests was nice
walking and I enjoyed the first hour before I lost some time trying
to find the right walking tracks after a series of unmarked
junctions. I guessed a few times and had to retrace steps
once. It was a bit annoying because I was already a bit behind
my day's schedule due to my late start.
Eventually I found
the trail I needed to be on, a forest road closed to traffic, and
followed it to the north-east as it climbed along the side of a deep
valley. It was relatively easy and pleasant walking, but a
little annoying because I knew that I was going to cross to the
other side of the valley later (at the village of Rein) and that
meant that every metre I gained I was going to have to soon lose.
The real climb for the day, lay on the other side of the valley
where I was going to reach a pass at nearly 2800m later in the day.
The descent into Rein wasn't too bad and I reached the small
valley shared by a couple of other hamlets and found myself a bench
to have lunch beside the trail with a view along the valley.
During lunch it began to rain and I had to get my raincoat out for
the first time in over a week. The clouds looked ominous and I
expected to get wet again during the afternoon. Sure enough,
not long after I started my big climb, a thunderstorm passed
overhead and it began raining heavily. I kept climbing through
the picturesque pine forest, glad I wasn't high enough yet to be
worried about lightning strikes, although I did pass a couple of
hikers sheltering under rock overhangs. The trail was
well-maintained and marked and I plodded on upwards, dodging the
puddles that had now formed everywhere, eventually reaching a high
alpine valley with a few cattle grazing, surrounded by forbidding
rocky crags. The trail climbed gradually up the valley before
beginning a steeper ascent over very rocky terrain. Another
thunderstorm passed nearby and more rain arrived, but I resisted
donning my raincoat again, gambling that the storm would soon pass
and I would quickly dry out. The pattern repeated itself
several more times, but the storms seemed isolated and brief.
By this time, I knew I wasn't going to get further than
Rieserferner Hutte (2791m) for the night and kept looking out for it
on the ridges above. The terrain had turned into a rocky
moonscape with a few snow patches and a couple of small glaciers off
to the right. The path just kept climbing and climbing, but I
still couldn't work out exactly where it was heading. It was a
bit surreal. Finally, it flattened out a bit and I crossed a
barren rocky pass to the Hutte where there turned out to be only a
few people staying and a very jovial proprietor. I was given a
room to myself and the five guests - me, a mountain-climbing Dutch
couple, a German PhD student mountain climber, and a Lebanese-Greek
girl, Carla, who was hiking the whole Via Alpina in the opposite
direction to me - shared a table at dinner. Fortunately for
me, they all spoke good English and we had a very pleasant evening.
Carla and I swapped notes on the Via Alpina and long-distance hiking
in general. She has done the Compostela del Santiago and
Corsica, and had some funny stories. It is 25 days since she
left Trieste and she hopes to reach Monaco in October.
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