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The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking in Europe.

Friday, October 1st, 2004
Woke up to the sound of heavy rain falling on the tent. Didn't bother to check the time and tried to fall back asleep. By 8am Tim and I were both awake and couldn't sleep anymore. We talked about the crazy dreams we had – mine were about the growling animal. I messaged Fred with our plans for the day then reluctantly worked towards getting out of the tent. We decided to make a run for it and get out of the tent in between rain storms. We need to pack while the rain is slow. The rain never stopped but let up enough to give us a false sense that it was stopping…tricked again!

We lowered our packs from the tree and heated up some water. We put our Gortex parkas on but the rain was so heavy that within minutes we were soaked through and getting wetter by the second. We were absolutely miserable but only slightly cold. We stood there, under the fir trees and tried to hide from the rain. There was no hiding.

Finally, at 10am we became determined to pack, regardless of the rain. We did and off we went—with a soggy tent and packs. We continued on down the road. The rain kept on us through our hike. We got back on the highway and walked east towards Schloss Linderhof which was King Ludwig's summer home a few hundred years ago. Tim and I have been to this area with our families before so we slowly started recognizing familiar scenery as the clouds and fog would momentarily clear.

We crossed back into Germany and worked towards Linderhof. The rain fell steadily and was doing a great job of making us miserable. We both joked that if the rain didn't stop by the time we were ready to leave Linderhof that we would get a room there and give up. To use the cliché, we were not happy campers!

We wanted to get off the road so we consulted the map and found a parallel trail that would take us where we needed to go. The only thing stopping us from using it was a river that we were walking next to. We stepped over the guardrail and walked down the small incline to the river bed then walked along it looking for a fording site. The river was only knee deep but we didn't want to just step in and get soaked. In the end, we had no choice but to run through the deep, cold water to get to the other side. We did and left the paved road in exchange for a nice logging road in the woods.

By noon , the rain was letting up and we had hope that this was a change for the better. We stopped on the side of another intersecting river and had lunch in a rock field. We had some warm soup and some jerky. We took our wet parkas off and attempted to dry out a bit while the run was shining on us. It started to get warm so our hopes soared even more. By the time we ate, filtered water and started moving again, we had forgetting about the rain that had dampened our spirits and were ready to hike on!

We arrived at Linderhof, walked around it and enjoyed the beautiful fountains with gold statues and sculptures in them. We took some pictures then continued on our way.

We left Linderhof and entered the woods. The trail we were on was a nice wooded trail that was suitable for biking, hiking and even served as a logging road of sorts. The trail was cut between two ridgelines so the views were, as usual here in southern Germany , absolutely stunning.

The sun stayed with us for the rest of our hike. We used the map and the GPS to link between two trails again. If we didn't have the GPS we would have had a difficult time finding the right place to cut off one trail and join the next. At the split in trails, Tim stopped and changed out of his wet socks. He was quickly developing blisters and needed to stop that from happening. Tim had recently hiked 100 miles in the Nijmegen march which is a yearly march where, over 4 days you hike 100 miles! He learned a lot about foot care and the importance of caring for your feet so he didn't hesitate to stop and fix the problem before it stopped him.

After changing socks we disappeared into a trail through the woods that would put us next to another river. We walked along the river and after 10 minutes we realized that the only way to get to the other trail – on the opposite side of the river – was to ford another river! We stepped down to the river bed and looked for a crossing site but, like the previous river, found no such site. I eventually ran a crossed while soaking my pants up to my crotch. I made it to the other side, turned around to see Tim and laughed and heckled him as he tried to find a dry way across. In the end, he did not and he was soaked as well.

The trail up to this point had been fairly level but now it was rising up into the mountains and started to strain us again. We continued on and eventually found ourselves on a descent. Soon we would have to camp.

We were walking in a high alpine grazing field for cattle and everywhere we looked we found the ground to be marshy and soft with lots of mud. No place to camp. The sun slowly started hiding and it was rapidly getting cooler and we still hadn't found a place to camp. We had a place that we found on the map that was near a water source but when we got to it, we found that it was marshy as well. We walked around the nearby area and found a square that was caved out of the woods. It had a few rows of logs stacked in it and was apparently a logging area for trucks to park, load wood and turn around. We decided that this was our only choice. I wasn't too fond of camping here in someone's land (not knowing the rules for camping) but this was our last choice. It was already getting dark and we had to take this opportunity.

We set up camp and I quickly made my way down 100 meters to a fast flowing river. I pumped several liters of water for our dinner and use tomorrow then rejoined Tim who was working on a small campfire. Turned on my phone so I could tell Stef where we were camping but could not get reception here.

We set the tent up and found that all of our stuff was wet so we tried to lay out what we could…however as soon as we were all set and had gear strewn around our area, the rain returned and scared us into hiding our gear and getting back in the tent for the night. We went to bed with little dinner but were tired and worn out from the hike and rain.

Today's total: 13.6 miles or 22.0 kilometers
Trip total: 21.1 miles or 34.1 kilometers

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