Russell's First Post

I'll turn the blogging "pen" over to my brother Russell... whose unique
writing style will no doubt give you much to think about :-).

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Stardate 1.01 Captain's log
With the best of intentions we set off into the wild blue yonder of
Bavaria. We we`re accompanied the first couple of rainy hundred meters
along the road by close family, and some neighbours. I suspect they were
all happy to see us eventually leave as the preparations for departure had
taken days encompassing event planning, party preparation, cooking,
cleaning, cooking again, cleaning again, guest introductions, parties
(numerous), entertainment, pretense of pleasantries, suffering close family
too close for too long, and of course the fears as to would these people
ever actually get underway.
Already downcast from my loss of my brother's house key, I felt that
perhaps starting on a low note could only help me as there seemed no where
to go but up. I was wrong about this. There was to be much further down to
go as we went up, and down, and across the fields towards our first day's
destination. The family waved us away, and the ordeal was embarked upon
with good humor and well wishes.
Thanks be to God that the next major occurrence, Sally's loss of passport,
driver's license, and all the money she had changed so far (thousands? tens
of thousands? $28.50?), took me out of the perceived mental spotlight as I
had already surmised that something untoward was to occur. My subtle lack
of training the last few weeks had put me so far into the portly category
that I could be mistaken for a barge. My once proud muscularity had waned
and my bulk seemed solely to compose of sausage stuck into a human's skin
sack. For some reason, perhaps the daunting prospect of months of endless
hiking, I had been disinclined to do much hiking in preparation. The closer
the event loomed, the less I exercised. As hiking has become one of my sole
forms of exercise, taking it away left me with walking, sitting and lying
as forms of caloric consumption. Topping the scale at over 250 pounds, in
Munich, my performance anxiety fears were soon to be realized. Day 1
however proved to be physical
ly easily accomplished, and the pork I ate for dinner erased all worries as
to overweightedness - food steers blood away from the brain as it brings on
the sensation of satiety. Who can worry when one is full?

Stardate 1.02 First Engineer Scott reporting
Mutiny on the Bounty is essential reading for all hikers. Or please refer
to the recent hit movie, Pirates of the Carribbean. One has expectations as
to the day's hike, and more often than not, these expectations cannot be
met. I was looking forward to a pleasant stroll through the Bavarian hills,
with happy fresh-faced farm folk waving to us and perhaps offering fresh
milk warm from the teat, or a choice pork sausage recently stuffed. Sadly,
as the bulk from my recent zealous "eating with abandon" philosophy of
preparation made itself known to my feet and legs, the path seemed to
stretch further and further in front. I naturally only had myself to blame
for my feelings as to this day's hike. In an effort to get as far away from
all that I know, and practice, as possible, I had once again put myself
solely into my brother's capable hands. To release oneself from
responsibility might be the goal of every vacationing physician, as we are
too often responsible for the lives of all of
those who seek our help professionally. So, in my warped mind, this means
knowing absolutely nothing about what the day holds in terms of distance,
route, destination, weather, etc. I thus travel as the happy idiot, eager
to follow, an elephant holding the tail of the beast in front, wandering
gaily, free from intrusive worry or concern. Somehow much to my chagrin,
loud concerns were raised by various body parts, and as the day stretched
from, when inquired as to length, some few hours, to some few more hours, I
felt betrayed from both within and without.
It is inadvisable to purchase boots on T-1 day of a hike. I know this now.
I must write all the rules of hiking that I discover along the way to help
the future H2H hikers.
I wonder if I turned off the stove back in SLC?

Stage 5

A tough and long day yesterday from Walchensee to Oberammergau. The day dawned fair and the weather forecast was encouraging, so at breakfast I managed to convince the others to take a higher route over a saddle rather than the lower level path along the Eschenlaine stream. This added about +/-500m to what we would have otherwise have done and made the day closer to what I had originally planned (going from the Herzogstand Haus to Heimgarten and then down to the saddle).

The trails were lovely, the views spectacular, and morale was high for the first few hours. Sometime around two and a half hours into the descent to Oberammergau, however, as feet began to complain, the group happiness index began to drop, and by Eschenlohe there was a noticeable sentiment of "Null Bock auf Nix" (no desire to do anything).

This feeling was not helped by the fact that, as was the case last year when I did my test hike, none of the three Gaststaetten in Eschenlohe was open For various reasons (terribly maintained hiking paths, inaccurate signs (where else can one walk for 40 minutes in the direction of X from one sign saying "3 hours to X" only to find another sign saying exactly the same thing?), the fact that everything is always closed when I am there, and the singularly unwelcoming appearance and behaviour of the inhabitants), Eschenlohe is not my favorite village in Oberbayern :-).

After a second lunch we pushed on, crossing the wide flat valley of the Loisach to Plaicken where the final challenge of the day -- a 600m climb to and descent from the Laberjoch awaited us. The climb goes along paths that at first have a medieval feel to them and go down from there reaching a nadir of true Dark Ages awfulness just before you reach the top. Russell, poor fellow, was suffering big time by now so I sang him a few freely adapted verses of "Summertime", which seemed to cheer him up. Here's an example, as well as I can remember it:

Summertime, and the hiking is easy.
The trail is smooth, and your pack is light.
Your legs are strong, and your butt is good-looking,
So Russell, don't you cry.

And there was more of the same. At least it had the effect of getting Dave to start singing something else (perhaps to shut me up?), which then led to Russ singing... and the crisis passed.

Dave, by the way, as I have said before, is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. One of the principles of hiking in a group is that no-one should ever be allowed to trail behind alone. There should always be one other person who hikes with them. Dave always plays this role and is a great comfort to whomever is feeling weak and slow at that moment.

Dave is also a remarkable hiker in other ways. For example, he doesn't hike like other people: he is more like a dog, stopping to take photos then running to catch up; running ahead to take a photo of the group then waiting for us to catch up. In fact he seems to run much more than he actually hikes, and this despite carrying some 16kg on his back and a huge honking camera with telephoto lens in his arms. He is a remarkable fellow.

After 9 hours and 20 minutes of hiking, almost 11 hours after leaving Walchensee, we arrived at Oberammergau. Although it seems to have rained almost everywhere else in Bavaria yesterday, it didn't rain on us. But we were exhausted anyway. The following day was to be (and as I write this, now is) a rest day, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

5 down, 86 to go....

Stage 4

Another day shorter than planned, but this time due to inclement weather. We were up at 5:50 and hiking by 6:45, in order to get to the Herzogstandbahn Bergstation before the last gondola descended at 4:45. Ominous clouds and thunder as we came down from the Jochberg at 1PM, however, convinced us that in this case discretion would be the better part of valour, and so we decided to walk along the shore of the Walchensee instead.

This means that tomorrow we will take the lower route via the Eschenlaine river to Eschenlohe, which is probably not a bad idea anyway, for a couple of reasons: firstly, if the weather is poor (as it is predicted to be), then a traverse of the Grat between Herzogstand and Heimgarten is not a good idea, secondly I don't know the route and so it will be interesting to see something new, and thirdly I think that the team is still inclined to shorten the hikes wherever possible!

Other than a little rain and thunder at the end of the day, the weather was once again beautiful, and the hike from the Tutzinger Huette to the Jochberg is one of the prettiest I know.

We are starting to amass various minor injuries and irritations: I have a slight infection of one toe due to an ingrowing toenail, Russell has a rash around his ankles, and Sally's Morton's Neuroma is giving her ever more pain. Nothing yet, however, that has caused any of us to skip a day. I think, though, that we are all looking forward to the rest day after tomorrow's hike to Oberammergau.

Richard Maerz showed up around 6PM today, having hiked up to the Herzogstand Haus under the mistaken impression that we would be spending the night there. After walking in and being told that we were not there and had no reservation, he remembered that I had also talked about a hotel in Walchensee. A few telephone calls and fortunate timing in catching the last gondola down brought him to us just as we were finishing dinner (yes, at 6PM -- what can I say, we had lunch at 10AM and were hungry!).

We chatted for a while as a group, then the other three went off to an early bed while Richard and I talked further and then played a quick game of Carcassonne. We'll be having breakfast at 7:30 tomorrow, so I'll sign off here for now. More, perhaps much more, during the free day on Wednesday after we get to Oberammergau.

Stage 3

We made it to the Tutzingerhuette in 6 hours, 1.25 hours shorter than planned. Of course, taking the easy route down from the Rotohr Sattel may have had something to do with this. There was a general feeling among the group (with the exception of YT (Yours Truly)) that we should skip the Benedikten Wand because the previous day's hike had been much longer than planned.

Weather, beautiful and hot, a fair number of people on the trails, but not that many, especially considering that it was a Sunday. Morale fairly high... Russell being the exception due to not being in as good shape as he perhaps should have been and various minor ailments. Sally has also various ailments but still marches out in front (at least early in the day; later I seem to pull ahead :-).

When we got up to the Brauneck Huette there was an accordeon player playing for anyone who cared to hear. That plus the view and the Apfelschorle was a sort of summary of why hiking in the Bavarian Alps is such a pleasure.

Tough day tomorrow... we'll be up early and racing the clock to get to the Herzogstandbahn Bergstation before the last lift goes down at 4:30. Unclear if team is going to be very pleased with me at the end of the day :).

One very nice surprise: Thomas Bili showed up this morning to hike with us up to the Brauneckhuette... bringing good cheer. With Bea and Arnulf yesterday this is becoming a very welcome habit. We seem to be blessed with excellent friends!

Lastly, this is being posted a day late due to the fact that there was no cellphone access at the Tutzinger Huette... something that will no doubt occur frequently.

Stage 2

It is late and we have to get up early tomorrow to hike along the Benediktenwand, so I'll keep this short. A long day -- much longer than planned: 7.5 hours instead of 6. The problem was that the paths along the Isar prior to Bad Toelz that were straight as an arrow on the map were totally zig-zaggy on the ground (as in a zig every 2 meters). And when they were straight, usually they were horse paths with loose pebbles (Schotter) that felt as if one were walking along a beach. It was a lovely hike, but it was tiring and long.

The day was however saved from a descent into mutterings about how Shackleton would never have done this to his men, by the sudden and totally unexpected appearance of two cheering and bell-ringing maniacs with flags on which was written "H2H" and "Go Sally, Guy, Russ, and Dave", and on which were also the flags of all the countries through which the H2H goes. It was Beatrice and Arnulf, who had parked their car in Lenggries and ridden their bikes back along the Isar to Bad Toelz asking everyone they met if they had seen four Americans with huge packs. We met them just before Bad Toelz and then all had lunch together.

In the afternoon (ok, later than that: it was 3:15) they announced that they would accompany us back to Lenggries on foot, pushing their bicycles, a distance of over 12 km. Greater love have no friends than these two.... They stayed with us for dinner and left around 9:30, promising to reappear in Switzerland (at the latest!).

Much more to say (for example about the Bavarian jumping slugs), but I need to get some sleep so that's all for now.

Technology Teething Troubles

Apologies for not posting yesterday as planned... It turns out that the interface for my blog has some sort of underlying technology that is incompatible with my cellphone. Since you are reading this I have obviously resolved the issue (basically by finding a normal computer to set up my blog account so I can email posts to it), but it took a little while.

Stage 1

Day 1
The H2H began as planned today... OK, not exactly as planned, but at least it began. You see, it went like this: we had planned to leave about midday, but then Russell lost my housekey and had to drive back to the store he thought he had lost it in (and no, he didn't find it). Then I couldn't find my sunglasses. Then Dave... well, what can one say? Dave is Dave rather like "Mir san mir" describes Bavarians. Bottom line: we left at 2:15. Then there were photos to take, and finally we were off.

It was, as I had expected raining... Not a hard rain, but enough to make us wear our raingear. We stopped in Wolfratshausen for Sally to buy a Camel Pak (flexible water container, for those who don't know it) and then continued as planned along the Isar towards Einoed.

About an hour and a half later, after a short break, Sally drops a bombshell: she thinks that she left her money belt (with all her money, her passport, her drivers license, etc.) either in or just outside the sports store in Wolfratshausen!

General consternation. What to do? We decide to do what all intrepid explorers would do: call for help. Lidia wasn't at home, so we called Arnulf. Arnulf took charge, found the number of the store, called them and explained what to look for and where... no luck. So Sally and I take a taxi back to the store... and find the belt! It was black and in a plastic bag... in a bin full of black things in plastic bags: it wasn't surprising that even though they knew where to look, the store people hadn't found it.

Back to Geretsried where Russ and Dave were still sitting by the side of the road and we continue. I only make one significant mistake (which nevertheless costs us about a km) and we arrive at the Landgasthof Beham about 19:40... quite hungry but still very happy to have survived Day 1.