15 Aug Bavaria and the Koasa
Tramping
Nico dropped me off on a main road in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland. It wasn’t five minutes before someone picked me up and dropped me off in the next town. I traveled like that, alternating between walking and short rides until I got to Biel/Bienne. There it took a while standing in the hot sun before I was picked up by a woman driving a semi truck. She then dropped me in another town where I sat for almost an hour. I am not a very patient hitchhiker, so I decided to walk to what might be a better spot. I wound my way through a small village full of apple trees and down walking paths edged with blackberry bushes to a gas station and rest area on the side of the autobahn. From there I quickly picked up a ride all the way to Munich! What a stroke of luck!
The man spoke wonderful English, and we talked almost the entire way. He dropped me off at a bus station after inviting me to watch the lunar eclipse with him and his family that evening. I declined, since I was already so close to my destination and I wanted to make it there that evening. I picked up my final ride from a German man who spoke no English, so despite a few attempts at conversation we mostly drove in silence. He happened to be getting off at the same exit as me, and at the off ramp we split ways.
From here I walked the rest of the way to the address Sophie had left me. I arrived at a beautiful house in another small village that smelled of apples and walked around the back to where I heard voices. Two women were chatting and I tentatively asked if they spoke English. When I asked if they knew Sophie they said yes… then paused, so I asked if she was in. She was not. The women were very confused about who I was and what I was doing there. They kept asking if I had a meeting set up with her. All I could answer was ‘sort of’.
I had texted Sophie in the morning before leaving Nico’s farm. I said that if I didn’t arrive by the evening or the next day to call red alert, but since I was hitchhiking I had no idea when I would arrive. I also have no SIM card for Europe, so I had no way to reach her and tell her I was getting close. One of the women got me a glass of water and the WiFi password and let me sit outside while I tried to get ahold of my friend. She finally responded, and when I said I was outside of her house she freaked! ‘What? You’re where? Now? No way! You’re crazy! That’s amazing!’, and so on. Then she came to pick me up.
Koasa Bazis
We went to a small beach on the river where her friends were waiting. They have a nickname for themselves – the Koasa Bazis. Koasa is another name for the mountain seen in the distance – one I would visit later – and Bazis is hard to translate, but Sophie described it as a name for a group of friends that plays pranks on one another. They had spent the afternoon scoping out the beach for a party they planned for the next day. We sat on blankets in the sand and talked, watching other groups dance around bonfires, and toasting marshmallows given to us by a birthday party. The lunar eclipse came and went. The next morning, Sophie got up super early to go hiking with another friend, but I was so wasted from lack of sleep that I stayed and slept in. I caught up on some writing and when she returned we made some dinner, then packed up for the party. We returned to the same beach, where the other girls had been working all afternoon to set up the area. There was a tent pavilion, a bonfire, tables, speakers, colored lights, beer pong, the whole she-bang. We grilled some cheese and sausages, listened to a group of musicians hanging out nearby, and I set up my tent while waiting for everyone else to arrive.
Once we had enough people we started playing drinking games. Some I hadn’t played in ages, others I had never heard of! Guess I’m getting old 😬. There were a lot of people, and funny enough I met a guy who was in Tonsai and Thakhek in Asia at the same time I was! I also met another American who is living here at the moment with her German boyfriend, and also happens to live in her van back in the States. Anyways, it was a grand, drunken evening full of laughter, games, dancing, and trying to communicate in English-German while intoxicated. I finally collapsed into my ‘dog-house’ (the little tent Sophie lent me, since I had gotten rid of mine) at 3am, while the others partied on.
In the morning the beach looked like the zombie apocalypse had finally happened. There were bottles and cups strewn about, open tents with feet hanging out, and a few hungover people walking slowly across the sand with their heads down. Maybe that was just me. Some of the girls were already up, chatting from their tent. Bread was passed around, and soon we were all up cleaning the beach and packing up. When the beach was back to normal we stripped down and took turns diving into the freezing cold water, then lounged in the sun, still feeling lazy and tired. We finally mustered up the energy to leave and treated ourselves to ice-cream for all our hard work.
Beach Life
After a shower and a change of clothes I felt not even close to good as new, but better. We drove up to Berggastof Bichlersee Hotel where there is a small pond with a beautiful view of the mountains. On Monday we went to Kufstein, across the border in Austria, to visit Stephi and went to yet another lake, the Hechtseebach. There we hiked to a sunny spot, swam for a while, then jumped from the rocks into the water. Ynef joined us, and we relaxed for a while. Despite all of the sunning and swimming, we were still exhausted from the brutal heat we had all week.
That evening we met Stephi, Max, Jonas, and his sister for a sunset hike up Nuslberg. We were a bit late getting started, so we were keeping a fast pace up a steep trail. A really fricking steep trail. By the time we reached the small hut near the top, Sophie and I were dying. The others (super-fit German and Austrian superheroes that they are) decided to continue up the trail at a jog to try and make it to the peak. Sophie and I sat on the bench and watched the sun set next to the mountains, casting an orange and purple glow on the villages below. It was beautiful, and we ate cookies and laughed about scaring the others when they got back down (which didn’t work, by the way). The others came back, not having made it quite to the top despite their heroic efforts. They ended up missing most of the sunset, so I think our laziness served us well.
The next morning we got up early and went climbing! I was nervous about it, because at the beach party I injured my toe. Let’s just say I got in an argument with a rock, and I did not come out ahead. Luckily, I climbed just fine, though my toe was pretty sore by the end of the day. We were super lazy. We arrived mid morning, both led one route, then rested and had a snack. Then we climbed another route, and Stephi showed up, so we stopped and talked, had a snack, and Sophie set up her hammock. The next two routes both Sophie and I got a nap in, then Stephi left and we did one more to round out the day. We were all exhausted, but it was great, and the walls were in the shade all day. I was just happy to climb, and proud of myself for leading successfully (aka, not having a panic attack) after such a long time.
We stopped by a park on the way back to the house and hiked to another swimming hole where we took turns jumping into some freezing water. It woke us up for about 5 minutes, then we were zonked again. We showered and headed back to Stephi’s place and made dinner together. We were trying to plan a backpacking trip for the weekend, but needed to determine a route. Unfortunately, I wasn’t any help, since I had no idea where the sleeping huts were or the names of anything at all. I mostly zoned out while they spoke primarily in German and settled on a good plan for us. I just smiled and nodded.
Beer Fest
Sophie had an exam in another city, so I had most of the day to myself. I caught up on some more writing and baked an apple cake for her family. In the afternoon, Stephi picked me up and we rode bikes to the store to get some hiking gear and food for our trip. Then we dropped by Inef’s so I could try on one of her dirndls, a traditional German/Bavarian dress. We were all going to the local beer festival that evening, and I had to look the part! I went back to the house and got ready for the party. Inef and her friend from Nepal picked me up at 7, and we headed out!
Everyone was asking me what I thought about the event and if I was surprised, and I have to say – it was exactly what I thought it was going to be. Almost everyone was in traditional dress, the women in dirndls and the men in lederhosen. Beer was served in enormous glass mugs and the servers were walking past with huge trays loaded with chicken, wurst, sauerkraut, and large pretzels. A band, complete with tuba and accordion, was playing both traditional and modern music, and as the night went on more and more people were standing on the benches singing, dancing, yelling, and Prost!-ing, sloshing beer everywhere. It was a riot – I loved it!
In the morning, Sophie surprised me with a traditional Bavarian breakfast. She came back from the store with an arm full of groceries, and set everything up while I showered. I came down to a table loaded with sliced meats and cheeses, chopped vegetables, a basket full of different types of breads and pretzels, spreads, sweet mustard, boiled eggs, and white sausages. I’m told that this is traditional after a night of drinking, and usually a beer is served with breakfast as well. Ynef joined us, and we gorged. It was amazing. We had another lazy day, relaxed, watched a movie, and packed for backpacking over the weekend.
Wilder Kaiser
Max dropped us off at Stephi’s apartment early in the morning and we loaded up her car and headed to Wilder Kaiser park. Sophie and I had talked about camping, but before heading out we decided against it and pulled out our sleeping mats and extra gear. Then we began the long ascent from our parking area in Going to Gruttenhütte, the cabin we would be staying in. It was tough going (😂)! It was a steep ascent, and we reached our first resting point at a closed hut in 2 hours. I stripped and tried to let my clothes dry, which did a whole lot of nothing. I was soaked in sweat. And the whole time the girls were like a kilometer ahead of me, while I’m stopping every two seconds to pick another mouthful of wild berries. You see where my priorities lie.
Anyways, we kept moving up, reaching a peak to enjoy the view at Baumgartenkopfl. Now we were heading into jagged, barren rock, and this was where it got interesting. Stephi had let me borrow her hiking boots, since all I have are some old tennis shoes that are sort of falling apart. They ensured me that I needed good tread on my shoes to do the via ferrata on the trail we were taking. We walked up to a wall where there were rebar stakes drilled and glued into the wall connected by a thick wire leading upwards. We put on our helmets, harness, and special via ferrata climbing devices, and followed Sophie up the wall. At each piece of rebar, you clip two opposing carabiners onto the wire. Then you climb or descend the wall until you reach the next piece of rebar and reclip the carabiners above or below that piece. This moves you up or down a nearly vertical wall or across a steep traverse in relative safety. Of course, falling would still suck and be pretty dangerous, so the goal was to not do that.
It took a minute to get used to the style of climbing, but after that it was a lot of fun. The scariest part was after crossing the ‘bridge’ and transitioning back onto the wall, this one much more vertical than the last. But we made it! Excited, adrenaline pumped, and feeling rather accomplished, we made it to the end and practically trotted the last few minutes to the hut.
Gruttenhütte
Europe has this amazing thing….Mountain huts! They are usually run by alpine organizations, and are not reachable by vehicle. You have to hike in to them, and you can stay in the hostel-style accommodation for a reduced price if you are a member of an alpine group. They have awesome food, and you can hike from one to the next if you are doing a multi day trip. When we arrived we had a bit of sour news. The rooms were not the price we expected, they were 17 euro, and we could only have the cheaper ‘emergency’ beds if the hut filled up. So the woman kindly gave us a room and said that if other guests arrived she would move us to the cheaper beds. We took the rest of the day off because the girls planned a long circular route to tour the area tomorrow. We did yoga to stretch away some of the fatigue from the hike, had dinner, played some board games, and luckily did get to sleep in the cheaper beds for only 6 euro (lucky, because I didn’t bring that much money!).
We got up early, and I stretched out my sore legs while Sophie and Stephi had some breakfast. We emptied our bags of any unnecessary items for the day hike, and threw them in a trash bag and set it in the corner of a room. The woman downstairs put us on the list for the emergency beds again, and we let her know we wouldn’t be back for dinner until later in the evening. Then we started the steep trek to our first summit of the day: Ellmauer Halt. It was steep, but absolutely gorgeous. In just two hours we were sitting above the clouds, and saw the entire park below us.
We moved on down the mountain’s back side, balancing on a narrow fin of rock and crossing some traversing via ferrata, then slid down a steep gravel path. When we reached a valley, the girls realized that we had taken the long way around, adding a couple of hours to our journey. Not the best news when your journey was originally going to be 9 hours. But we made the best of it, and moved on down the mountain. We were heading towards Hans-Berger-Haus, another mountain hut where we planned to stop for dinner. We moved down in altitude, again entering forests with wild blueberries where I was again distracted. We were exhausted by the time we made it to the base, but because of our detour we had limited time to spend here. We had a brief dinner, then started the trek back up the mountain.
My legs refused to move. The girls were light years ahead, and I trudged slowly and miserably behind. This is what I get for agreeing to something so challenging that I have no recent training for! But I made it to the top of the forested trail where they were waiting for me at a split. We had two options: A 5 hour route that they didn’t know the topography of, or a 4 1/2 hour route that is black rated… A.K.A. Really fucking difficult. It was already 4 o’clock, and it gets dark around 9 or 9:30, so we would be cutting it close either way. We decided on the shorter, but more difficult route, just in the interest of time. We didn’t have any gear along now to be able to camp until the morning, so we had to make it back to the hut before dark, where hiking would be extremely dangerous in this environment.
I felt like I was dying. My legs did not want to continue. Stephi, the strongest of the group, was far ahead and out of sight. Sophie was a steady five hundred meters ahead of me most of the way, though she would stop to rest and we would regroup occasionally. We looked so miserable, that a group of hikers stopped and asked if we were okay, and expressed that we might be able to make it, but they weren’t sure we would get there before dark. Super motivating. I remembered my electrolyte tablets, and Sophie and I shared some before moving on, which revived us a bit. I took stock of my water and only had a half liter. Not nearly enough for the next 4 hours, especially with how much I’ve been drinking. Sophie suggested bivying right where we were, but I nixed that idea. We had no coats or sleeping bags with us – we would freeze, and after such a long day we needed sleep.
We got going, Sophie quickly moving ahead of me again. I got to the base of a huge mountain of gravel and stopped. I hate hiking in loose rock. I inched up, every step taking tremendous effort, every step forward making me slip half a step back. At two separate points I fell and slid down the steep hill for 2 or 3 meters, before hitting a solid rock to stop me sliding the rest of the way down the mountain. I was so tired, and so adrenaline depleted, that I really thought I was going to slip down the mountain and die or seriously injure myself. But I kept moving one foot in front of the other, and for a time after my falls I even crawled on my hands and knees. I found a patch of snow, where I cleaned off the dirt and refilled some of my camelbak. The ice cold water and the knowledge that I wouldn’t run out and dry up like a prune gave me some hope.
I finally reached the top where Sophie was waiting and we grinned and hugged and high fived. We could see the hut! The rest was down hill! And look at that view! We took some pictures, and with renewed energy, continued down.
Stephi was waiting for us at the last hill before the hut. I was limping by that time, my left knee killing me from the two steep down hill treks today. Twelve hours after our departure, we had arrived back, safe and relatively sound. We ordered dinner, took a hobo bath (they charge for the showers), and ate in silence, too exhausted to think of anything to talk about. Revived with full bellies, I ordered a shot of entian schnaps, a local liquor flavored with the earthy tasting purple flowers that grow in the mountainous regions. In the States, schapps is super sweet, and usually mint flavored. Here, it’s just hard alcohol. Sophie and I sipped our drinks and we all went to socialize with some tourists from Holland we had met on the trail. Finally, too exhausted to continue, we made it to our beds and I fell into another night of fitful sleep.
We slept in a little bit the next morning. We had originally planned on another long tour back to the car, but after the previous day’s experience we decided to take a shorter route. The shortest, in fact. After breakfast and packing, we loaded up and were ready to repeat our trek from the first day, but when it started raining we changed plans and headed straight down the mountain. From there we hitchhiked back to the car, and Stephi dropped us of back at Sophie’s place.
Olpererhütte
She and I had a lazy day, where we rested, cooked dinner, made some popcorn and watched a movie. I repacked my bag for departure, and she packed hers for work. She and Stephi were going to work at a different mountain hut for the week, and I would join them for their first day. In the morning I said farewell to Sophie’s family, who had so kindly put up with me all week, and we headed back to Stephi’s and into some new mountains further south. She parked the car at a glacial lake called Schlegeisspeicher, and from there we began the hike.
They went ahead, as they had to be on time for their first day of work. I was moving slowly again, but this time it was due to the insane amount of weight I was carrying. How the hell did my bag get so heavy?? I swear, it wasn’t this bad before. I mean, I have the fish sauce, and the coffee, and the sugar, and the kefir, and some extra clothes, and….well, okay, so that’s why. But the hike was lovely, and while I moved steadily upwards, it wasn’t nearly as steep as the hikes over the weekend.
I finally made it to Olpererhütte and the girls were already hard at work. They waved at me, grinning. I sat and rested for a while and had a small snack for lunch. I asked about prices for a bed and was just a teensy bit shocked at the price. 27 euro for a non-member! I only had 30 euro with me, because I hadn’t thought much about the cost, and they don’t take credit cards at the huts. I was bummed, but not worried, and planned to sleep under the stars somewhere. Then I find out that the forecast predicted rain, which put a kink in that plan. I left my bag at the hut and hiked around a little bit, exploring the area and looking for a cave or other potentially dry spot to sleep. No such luck.
The girls came out for a photo shoot on the picturesque bridge overlooking the glacier. Sophie was all dressed up in her dirndle with a pint of beer. I’ve never seen anyone look so incredibly fucking German. It was perfect! We got some amazing and hilarious pictures, then they had to get back to work. Instead of doing a long hike, I rested in a copse of rocks, finished my book, and played around – not moving far, but enjoying the solitude and nature. When storm clouds started moving in around 3, I headed back to the hut. I planned to wait out the storm, spend my money on food and drink, then hike down and camp in lower altitude where it wouldn’t be so cold. Unfortunately, it never really stopped raining, so Sophie helped me ensure another ‘emergency’ bed, and I crashed on the floor of the restaurant that night. I had a thick pancake for dinner, hot chocolate with liquor, and slept like a baby until the other guests came down for breakfast at 6. Lucky for me, Katarina, the manager of the hut, is an incredibly kind person and let me take breakfast without charge since I was short on cash.
I said my goodbyes to Stephi and Sophie, nearly in tears, and told them to come visit me in America next time. Then I headed down the mountain to my next adventure.
Cost
Lodging: 12
Food: 72.60
Total: 84.60 or $98.04
Baller.
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