Be Prepared!

Though some of you may not believe it, once upon a time, I was, in fact, a Boy Scout. And what is the Boy Scout Motto? Be Prepared! What was I not during a recent hike in the Alps? You guessed it. Prepared. That is how, I regret to say, the mountain beat me.

But perhaps I should start from beginning. Not long ago Amanda and I were on vacation in Germany and Austria with Rob and Sarah. During part of this trip we stayed in the Leutasch Valley in Austria, and we allocated one day for hiking.

For those of you who have never been to the Alps, they are extremely steep...much steeper than the Rockies. Having been glaciated several times over the last 5 or so million years, they have been carved with deep valleys. For this reason, I had assumed that the mountain tops would be relatively inaccessible to amateur hikers such as ourselves. Consequently, I was anticipating an easy hike around the scenic valley floor, before I returned to drinking beer.

Amanda and I's complete inventory of hiking supplies when we set out: One bottle of water, a camera, two pairs of sunglasses, and a map.

As a general rule, I try to avoid doing things I will regret. But here are a few items I regret not bringing (Pay attention because these will be important later): Several liters of water, food, hiking poles, and sunscreen.

But I digress...we started out on bright sunny Alpen morning on trail that passed by our Pension (That's a bed and breakfast in Germany and Austria). The trail led through a cow pasture and into the forest.

Oh what a nice Alpen stream! This hike is easy so far.

After crossing the stream we reached a cross roads with several trail markers. Rob, Sarah, Amanda, and I began to contemplate which way we should go. We had a map, but that told us little about the quality of the hike. About that time, a helpful local came hiking up the path. Somehow, he knew immediately that we were tourists. Perhaps, he was very perceptive because I can't image what about our appearance would have pegged us as tourists.

He asked us where we were planning on hiking and if we had any questions. I looked at the signs at the crossroads. One trail in particular caught my attention.
"How about the Gehrenspitze? Is it difficult?," I asked.
"Do you mean difficult or dangerous?," he replied.
"Dangerous"
"No, it's not dangerous. Children do it"

He then proceeded to describe the trail in great detail (quite accurately, in fact). It sounded like a good hike, and if children could do it...Gehrenspitze it was. We hung a left at the cross roads and headed up.

I should pause here to briefly describe the hike we were attempting. The Gehrenspitze is the mountain that loomed directly over our hotel. It's peak is 2367 meters high (that's a little under 8000 feet). Not a huge mountain, but not too shabby either. The valley floor from which our journey began was at about 1000 meters (approximately 3000 feet). So we were attempting a climb of around 5000 feet over the distance of 7 or so kilometers. Not too bad.

The first part of the ascent was very steep with many switchbacks and, at times, stair-like. The trail was largely covered with loose rocks and gravel, a surface, which, I commented to Rob, would likely cause us difficulty on the descent. (It did).

Anyone who has been hiking with me knows my penchant for running up the sides of mountains and regretting it later. This hike was no different and we soon noticed that Amanda and I kept getting far ahead of Rob and Sarah. At this point, Rob, who had remembered the Boy Scout motto broke out the walkie-talkies that he had "liberated" from the Diehls. Each couple took radio and off we went.

After an hour or so, we finally broke out of the tree line into an Alpen meadow.

As you can see, we had entered a long valley between the two peaks. The Gehrenspitze is on the left. My best guess is that the bottom of the valley (where we are standing in the picture) is about 4000+ feet. The far end of the valley (way off in the distance) was marked at 2048 meters (about 6600 feet). Looking back the way we came, we had already hiked quite a distance.

During the summer, the farmers graze cattle and horses in these high altitude meadows.

Onward we climbed. After hiking a few hours, we looked back to see our progress.

We had come quite a ways. But we were starting to get hungry and thirsty, and we had drank about half of our water. Also Rob and Sarah were somewhere behind us in the valley. But I don't see them...do you? We had read that there were numerous huts on the trails in the Alps that actually served food. We looked at our map and saw that there was hut at the end the valley on the ridgeline. We wondered if it served food, or at least had water. We looked ahead up the valley.


If you look very, very closely there is a tiny bump on the left side of the "V" shape made by the ridge line against the sky. That was the hut. We radioed Rob that were making for the hut to find out whether or not it had food and water. Rob replied that they were not going to hike to hut until we verified that there was food. Our job was to radio back what we found.

It turned out that they next part of the hike was perhaps the hardest of all. The trail became very narrow and climbed rapidly to the ridge with not a few obstacles. Along the way we caught up with the helpful Austrian who initially described the trail to us. He asked us where our friends were. "I don't know. Somewhere back there." I pointed to the valley below. "They are not afraid, are they?," he asked. "No", I replied, "just slow."

Finally, after a great effort, we reached the ridge line. I was very hungry and thirsty (Amanda seemed to be fine). There were quite a few people picnicking at the crossroads there (and yes, there were small children). Now about that hut. Oh, look there it is...

But there seem to be a lot of cows hanging out there. I guess we had better investigate...oh, no ...ATTACK COW.

It was heading right for us. It marched right up to me, and stared. "I think it wants food or something," I suggested to Amanda. I tried to communicate with it. "I don't have any food, cow," I said. I wasn't sure if it understood English or not, but most of the people around here seem to, so it was worth a shot. The reply was swift, "MOOOOOO!!!" It was not happy. It gave me a look of utter contempt and headed for a family picnicking on a blanket. The woman there started yelling "I don't have anything" in German. The now sullen cow gave up and moved on.

We hiked up to the hut, to investigate. It was just a cow hut! It was used for storing hay for the cows or something like that! So we now we have no food, no water, and another 1ooo+ feet to climb to the peak. We radio back to Rob. The hut is a bust. He responds that he and Sarah are going to head back to the hotel. I realize that there is no way I am going to complete the hike without water (I probably could have made it without the food, though). Amanda and I decide to hike on a little further to something akin to a sub-peak to get some pictures.

It was definitely worth it. Here are some of the pictures we got.

Some more cows (with a view) taunting us:
The peak of the Gehrenspitze...taunting me. The little dot on the narrow trail through the grass is a hiker:

Amanda, ready to continue the ascent to the peak, mocking our weakness:

Some of the peaks nearby with glaciers:

Looking back the way we came:


Sarah asked us to take 360 degree video from the top, which we did. I was going to post it on this blog entry, but I am having trouble uploading it. I may try again later, and add it as a separate post.

So, after taking in the view for awhile we began the long descent. On the way down, we ran into the entire horse herd.

Shortly after passing the heard, we overtook Rob and Sarah. We hiked with them for a little bit, but I was extremely thirsty and wanted to get back to the hotel and get some water...food, too. Amanda and I hiked ahead again. When left valley and returned to the steep trail through the trees. My fears were realized. The loose rocks and gravel were treacherous, especially for legs that were already tired from a full day's hike. We slipped and slid numerous times, and I think I came close to breaking my toe once. Man, I wish I had brought hiking poles!

After a brutal descent through the forest, we finally made back to the hotel, where all we had to eat was a block of cheese. But the faucet in the bathroom sink produced plenty of water. Last but not least, Amanda noticed that my neck was sunburned. If only we had brought sunscreen!

Eventually Rob and Sarah finally returned as well. Everyone was exhausted (except for Amanda). But that's okay, Austria has the perfect cure for exhaustion after a long hike...beer!