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The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking in Europe.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2004
Grunsfeld , Germany
After going to Austria for Labor Day I felt that it was time to finally hit the trail again. Tim (The Pharmacist) and I are planning on going out alone for a 3 day hike. We are planning to walk to the castle Neuschwanstein to Garmisch. We haven't really planned much—I have the Garmisch half of the map and Tim has the Castle side of the map; Great planning so far. Oh, the thing that complicates this is that Tim and I live an hour apart and won't see each other until tomorrow morning when we drive out.
Although we are only hiking for three days, my packing list contains the same things that I carried on my first hike on the Appalachian Trail . I have found that when you plan to live on the land, there are a lot of things that you can't or don't want to do without. The only real addition I have is a GPS. The trails we will hit are not as well marked as in the USA so the GPS will help us fix our position at times. My pack weighs about 47 pounds including water but not including fuel.
The weather for this weekend is forecast to be high in the low 60's and low in the low 40's. Of course, in the mountains it will be a bit cooler as well. The forecast says that it will be mostly cloudy and doesn't call for rain until Saturday (which is the day we plan on coming off the trail).
I went to bed at 11:30pm . We originally planned on meeting at Tim's house tonight but time slipped away without me packing so I decided to wait to leave in the morning. I called Tim and he is in the same predicament.
Thursday, September 30th, 2004
Woke up, showered, threw my gear in the car and left for Tim's house at 7am . Tim and I last hit the trail in March 2001 only a few weeks before I left for a year assignment in Honduras . We have planning a trip since we arrived in Germany in 2002 but this is our first time of making it happen.
It took me 2 hours to drive to his house—usually a 1:15 trip but I encountered a traffic jam (stau) that slowed me down. We loaded the car, dropped off his friend Jeffrey at the airport and then headed out for Neuschwanstein Castle which is in Fussen , Germany .
At 12:45pm and are greeted by the spectacular views of the 2 castles—Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Tim remembers hiking down from Neuschwanstein and remembers a parking lot that will work well for us. We find the lot—a wooded, open space—back our car into it and work on final preparations of our gear. In a pathetic attempt to shed some weight, I decide to leave my camp sandals behind.
1:30pm , 60 deg, mostly cloudy
HIKE ON!
The weather is great for hiking. Not too hot and definitely not too cold. We leave the parking lot after marking our spot with the GPS. Our elevation is 2200' and we are west of the castle. We walk down a level road looking for the trail that will lead us up to the Marien Bruke. The Marien Bruke is a foot bridge over a gorge that provides a great view of the castle. We easily find the trail and turn off in the woods. We take a few pictures then begin a steep ascent. There is a fast flowing river next to us which makes for great pictures. Here, the trail is a steel platform attached to a boulder, suspended over the river. Tim leads on and I am fading back—the hill is steep and is kicking my ass—as if the trail is welcoming me back while, at the same time, punishing me for being gone so long! After 30 minutes we are level with the castle-a climb of 400' or so. We stop at a bench and I take off my polar fleece-sweating profusely. We gather our packs and continue to climb the hill, past the Marien Bruke and then left on to trail 201. The signs tell us we are heading in the right direction so off we go.
We enjoy a pleasant hike on a paved trail/road with a few steep but short ascents. The scenery is amazing-we are walking in a river valley with beautiful mountains all around us. We also catch glimpses of blue as the clouds occasionally part to reveal the sky. After an hour and thirty minutes we come across an alpine hut which is basically a hotel and guest house. We stop for a beer then hike on.
We finally leave the paved trail of 201 and climb into an alpine pasture that looks very similar to what we hiked on in Austria (Labor Day). This trail eventually leads to switchbacks leading us down into Amerwald , Austria . At the bottom of the descent (which is fairly pleasant) we stop for a break and map check at a hut. The trail converges at this point and splits into two directions. At the convergence is a hut (a cottage house) with all the shutters closed. There is a picnic table outside and it proves an inviting place for us to rest. To the left, the trail continues on, across a small metal bridge and to the right the trail heads towards a parking lot. Marking the trail to the right is an old sign marking the entrance into Austria- Republik Ostereich . The sign is very worn and somewhat hard to read. We eat some snacks and get a GPS fix on our exact location. We plot a few points into the GPS that will assist us in finding our proposed camping site for the night. We quickly find that we are only six-tenths of a mile from where we want to camp—in the woods off a side trail. We continue on and enter Austria .
We leave the wooded trail, pass the Amerwald Hotel and exchange the woods for a highway (autobahn). We hike along the highway and easily spot the side trail for where we want to camp. We look for a place we can camp without drawing attention i.e. without being seen. We are not sure what the rules on camping are so out of site, out of mind. Tim locates an awesome site that is on the high ground near a river. It is very picturesque and is totally hidden from the trail.
We drop our packs at 6:12pm . It is 54 degrees and still cloudy. We make quick work of setting up our two man tent, prepare dinner (Mac-n-cheese) and filter 32 ounces of water from the rushing river. Sitting at the camp site we see the clouds swirling around the nearby mountain tops and intermittently giving us glimpses of the surrounding beauty. We are on the edge of a fir tree forest. Our tent lies on a plateau about 10 feet above a rushing river. Our tent is on grass but two feet in front of it, the ground drops down into rocky a rocky field created by the river as it swells during the summer melt. There are large, bone white boulders sticking up out of the water and they make a great seat while filtering water. The opposite side of the river is Germany and our side of the river is in Austria . The German side of the river rises sharply and climbs and steep, rocky mountain. We are in a great spot.
While the food is cooking, Tim finds a piece of wood and some rocks to create a bench to sit on. As we eat, the sun begins to set which leads way to us hearing some strange animal howling and/or growling. Neither of us has ever heard anything like this – it sounds like a bear growling by why would anything growl so much? Is it coming for us? Its non-stop and I must admit is that it is quite unnerving. What's worse is that it is getting dark and we can hear this animal over the sounds of the rushing river! We are definitely disturbed by the sounds so we pack some rocks and our hiking poles into the tent to give us some hope of defending ourselves should we need it. To lighten the mood, I pull out some fortune cookies and we eat the whole bag while reading some of the funniest fortunes (or misfortunes) that we have ever read! They are hilarious and we are not sure how they passed the censors and made it into the bag. Tim throws out one of his famous fortune-style quotes: “man who go to bed with itchy butt wake up with smell finger.” No sooner had the words left his mouth when I pull out a fortune that says those exact words! We laugh so hard and he takes the fortune and puts it in his wallet. The fun keeps on going through the whole bag of cookies but in between bites we can hear the growl of the stalker animal!
We was our dinner dishes and hang our backpacks in a tree about 5' off the ground to help dissuade any animals from rooting through them. I turn my cell phone on and send a message to Stefanie on where we are sleeping. She called me back (amazingly enough I have full reception here) and tells me that the van windshield got smashed by a tool that fell off a German truck while she was driving. It will cost 1800 Euro to fix (only $300 in the states). Everyone is ok but what a B.S. price. Good thing she saw the truck that the tool came off of—his company is going to pay for it.
Went to bed at 10pm and listened to the nasty animal growl (he has now moved closer it seems) while I wrote in my journal.
I have to say that I am out of shape for hiking (or for any strenuous activity for that matter) and was quickly re-introduced to the level of fitness required for such an undertaking. Aside from the steep up hills, this has been a good day on the trail. It makes it even better because of where we are camping. Additionally, this trail walking requires us to rely on the map quite a bit more than in the US so it definitely keeps it interesting.
Tomorrow we plan on hiking to Schloss Linderhof and beyond. Our trek will put us in Garmisch by Saturday as planned.
Animal still growling. Sounds like a cross between a cougar and a rabid cow...
Today's total: 7.5 miles or 12.1 kilometers
Trip total: 7.5 miles or 12.1 kilometers
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