Summary: highest pass this summer, spectacular views, great weather, hoisted by my own petard.
Andreas, Russ and I set out, regretfully, from Hotel Glieshof around 8:30AM. Regretful not because of the upcoming hike, but because the Glieshof really had been a delightful place to stay: Lidia and I will definitely be coming back. Speaking of Lidia, she had decided, way back when she first saw the plan, that this day (8.25h, 18k, and something like +1400m, -1700m) was not one she wanted to hike… so she drove the car around to Unser Frau (yes, odd name) and walked uphill in our direction instead. Oh, and I should probably mention that we took advantage of this to put everything unnecessary for the day's hike into the car… another step down that slippery slope I've being talking about! So, we had the advantage of hiking light today… which was perhaps unsurprisingly a good thing.
After an hour walking up the valley, and a couple of hours climbing out of it to a refuge at 2670m, we asked the refuge overseer where the trail next went: he pointed up at a forbidding black wall of rock and said, more or less, "Over that." It turned out to be easier than it looked, although it was just as well that none of us suffer from vertigo, and about an hour and half later we sat down to enjoy lunch at the 3100m Bildstöckljoch Pass surrounded by chaotic piles of fractured rock and remnant snowdrifts. But the views! From the Dolomites in the East to, well, we weren't quite sure what the mountains we could see in the western distance were, not having Kristof's Peak Finder app with us, but whatever their names, they were impressive and far away :-).
The weather was delightful, so we tarried a while before starting the long (and at times quite challenging) descent into the Schnalstal. First destination, some 1100m down, was the ski station of Kurzras — a dramatic change from the bucolic and remote Matschertal we had just left, with modern architecture, kiosks and souvenir shops, large parking lots, ski-lifts, and several hundred day-trippers walking down from where the lifts deposited them. It is probably good that there are some places like this — they allow a certain number of people to experience the beauty of the mountains who would otherwise never get closer to them than a car — but Dieu soit béni that most of the Alps has not been "developed".
Shortly after we passed Kurzras, Russ announced that the dreaded chafe had returned… and he chose to stop and take a bus the rest of the way rather than suffer as it got worse (a good decision: as a result he was able to hike the next day). Constrained by my promise to meet Lidia further down the trail, I suppressed the urge to join Russell in taking the bus, and Andreas and I walked on.
We found Lidia about 45 minutes later just above a hotel... in front of which there was a bus-stop. Having been day-dreaming about an ice-coffee (with vanilla ice-cream… mmmm), and no-doubt motivationally weakened by the absence of my trusty hiking partner, I suggested that we go down to the hotel, have something to drink (perhaps an ice coffee?) and take the bus. But Lidia, who had counted on the walk back down to get her exercise for the day, voted in favour of pushing on. And disgustingly chivalrous (and impressively fit) Andreas came down on her side. And that's the trouble with democracy for you. I suppose I could have let them continue on alone… but what if they had gotten lost?
Joke! Joke!
Somewhat dehydrated, increasingly exhausted, and gravely motivationally challenged, I plodded on. And on. And on. At some point Lidia noted that now I knew how others had felt, since (she claimed) plenty of other people have had the experience of me insisting upon continuing when all they wanted to do was to stop. Not true, of course — as I'm sure I could have proven if I had had the energy.
Finally, around 5:45PM I hobbled into our hotel in Unser Frau. I like to think that Andreas was hobbling too. One shower, ice coffee, and dinner later, I went to bed and was asleep shortly after 9PM. :-)
