http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=h2h&m=names
>
It was with some regret that we took leave of the Gafadura Hut at 7:45 this morning, because rarely have we found such a welcoming host, and never before such excellent food in a mountain hut. Lidia has pointed out that almost every blog post I do contains one or more references to food -- to which I must respond: well, of course! Other than the state of one's feet, there is nothing quite as important on a long hike as food. And so when one finds such large portions of excellently prepared food as at the Gafadura Hut, well, that is cause for celebration and certainly worthy of note in a blog post!
The fact that the views from the hut were spectacular, the sunset behind the Swiss mountains across the Rhine valley sublime, the temperature perfect to sit outside until it was dark and the lights of the towns below lit up the night... well, all these things are also very welcome, but the food, well, the food must take priority :-).
We, or at least I (because I think that I was the only one who read the brochure on Liechtenstein that our host gave us) learned a number of interesting facts about this tiny land (165km2, I believe), but perhaps the most interesting we learned simply by sitting there: they greet one another by sayin "Hoi!". I have never heard it anywhere else, and I like it. I think I'll adopt it for greetings henceforth. Since there are some 35,000 Lichtensteiners, sooner or later someone is bound to answer :-).
Today was a scorcher: cloudless and very hot. I think it must have been at least 35C in Vaduz, and although less at the heights where we spent most of the day, it was still hot enough to require copious consumption of water. Which made it a little unfortunate that I had a minor flood in my pack about an hour and a half into the hike this morning.
The sipping tube to my Camelpak (in-pack water container) wasn't projecting as far as usual so I gave it a good yank. A couple of minutes later, while climbing a ladder, I felt cold liquid dripping down my butt: the yank had pulled the tube off of its connector and a liter plus of water was busy percolating through my pack. Memo to self: treat Camelpak with more care in the future. Luckily everything important was sealed in Ziploc bags and moreover I was able to quickly pour out most of the water, so no actual damage was done: but by the end of the day I was much thirstier than I had expected to be.
It was a long hike -- some 7.25 hours, not counting breaks -- but what a hike! I think this was the best day yet in terms of views and the trail. The views were immense: from Lake Constance to the north, to the Widderstein (and much further, but that was the only peak I recognized) to the east, and into and over the deep valley of the Rhine far into the glacier-topped mountains of Switzerland to the west. Only to the south did nearby higher mountains limit the view, but with so much else to gawk at a complaint about this would be churlish.
The trail was similarly spectular: very varied, ranging from meadows, to steep hillside traverses, to forests, to ridge walks, to Klettersteig-like stretches with cables and ladders among tortured stony spires with huge (1500m+) drop offs to the west. There was even one stretch -- the Fuerstensteig -- that would have not have looked out of place in the American West, so stony and eroded was the mountainside across which the trail had been laid. It was a truly spectacular hike.
There were many others on the trails, it being Sunday, but with cheery "Hoi"s, and a smattering of "Gruezi"s and "Gruss Gott"s and "Hallo"s, it felt more like a gathering of friends than a crowd of strangers. One Liechtensteiner couple we met on one of the peaks offered us each a Haribo wine gum and then told us about someone they had met earlier in the day who made us H2H hikers feel a little small.
Apparently this fellow had started in Linz, Austria, some 450km to the east, about a month ago and since then had been walking westwards, spending each night sleeping outside on top of a peak. His eventual goal, he told them, was Spain. Well, there's no point in trying to construct a defense: as an expedition that clearly beats the H2H. On the other hand, we probably smell better than he does, and as I sit in the charming Hotel Real in Vaduz, fresh from a shower and looking forward to a nice dinner in the restaurant, I think that I would not like to exchange places with him.
