Realm: Touristing - Subrealm: Weekend
Oct. 23rd, 2005 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshOn Saturday I got up at a ridiculous hour to go hiking. I´d signed up to go on a university trip up Chreisalpfirst, which meant that someone else was providing transport, but also that I had to pay for said transport and for our guide, a 50-something Swiss heavy-metal fan named Wolfgang, who had been somewhat vague about things like when we´d be getting back. So there were nearly a dozen of us, mostly Ausländer, standing around outside the old Post building at 7 AM. Wolfgang eventually showed up avec van, and we drove across the Rheinbrück, as dawn was breaking golden over the Austrian alps. It was the first day that it had been clear enough to see them properly, even if only in silouette. We then drove along back roads (the Swiss Autobahn has heavy toll charges, apparently) for an hour and a half in what initially seemed to be the wrong direction, with me getting increasingly irritable until I realized that Wolfgang had not gone insane and driven us to the wrong mountain, and that even if his estimates about hiking time were similarly a little off, we would still get home in time for the Uni Ball that evening.
Chreialpfirst is 2100 m.--about 7000 feet--above sea level. That we hiked up it is less impressive than it sounds, since we started at about 1100 m., and then mostly walked up a very long valley and then along a ridge--it doesn´t really have a peak, unlike most of its neighbours--before going down an incredibly steep trail, with many switchbacks, to the valley floor. We started out from a village (Wildhaus) that clearly makes its money from skiers in the winter and cows in the summer. Yes, like Dad in Catalunya the other summer we were mostly walking through pasture--and past sheep huts closed up for the winter--all day. And thus while we didn´t always have cows above us (especially where there WAS no above us), cows had always been where we were. In every sense of the word.
So it wasn´t a terribly difficult hike for me, but several of our group were complete beginners, or close enough, and it STILL wasn´t a good hike to begin on. Though this only PARTLY explains while we stopped for a solid hour and 20 minutes to have coffee at a mountain hut. But the weather was gorgeous, and thus so were the views, dominated by the teeth of the Churfirsten to the south and Säntis (2500 m plus striped TV antenna) and Altman (2400, and right above us, unscalable without climbing equipment) to the north. Plus assorted crags that Wolfgang was waxing nostalgic about climbing. You couldn´t actually see Konstanz, although we could see the lake through the gaps between all of these.
Learned German words for such useful, everyday concepts as woodpile, marmot, isolated sheep barn, and silver thistle. Oh, and stinging nettle.
On my return, Grace and I went to the Uni-Ball, though we didn´t stay that long, being understandably a bit tired...
Meantime, Friday I met my Tandem (English/German conversation help) partner Britta, and witnessed something I thought I would never see: the Uni handing out free food.
Chreialpfirst is 2100 m.--about 7000 feet--above sea level. That we hiked up it is less impressive than it sounds, since we started at about 1100 m., and then mostly walked up a very long valley and then along a ridge--it doesn´t really have a peak, unlike most of its neighbours--before going down an incredibly steep trail, with many switchbacks, to the valley floor. We started out from a village (Wildhaus) that clearly makes its money from skiers in the winter and cows in the summer. Yes, like Dad in Catalunya the other summer we were mostly walking through pasture--and past sheep huts closed up for the winter--all day. And thus while we didn´t always have cows above us (especially where there WAS no above us), cows had always been where we were. In every sense of the word.
So it wasn´t a terribly difficult hike for me, but several of our group were complete beginners, or close enough, and it STILL wasn´t a good hike to begin on. Though this only PARTLY explains while we stopped for a solid hour and 20 minutes to have coffee at a mountain hut. But the weather was gorgeous, and thus so were the views, dominated by the teeth of the Churfirsten to the south and Säntis (2500 m plus striped TV antenna) and Altman (2400, and right above us, unscalable without climbing equipment) to the north. Plus assorted crags that Wolfgang was waxing nostalgic about climbing. You couldn´t actually see Konstanz, although we could see the lake through the gaps between all of these.
Learned German words for such useful, everyday concepts as woodpile, marmot, isolated sheep barn, and silver thistle. Oh, and stinging nettle.
On my return, Grace and I went to the Uni-Ball, though we didn´t stay that long, being understandably a bit tired...
Meantime, Friday I met my Tandem (English/German conversation help) partner Britta, and witnessed something I thought I would never see: the Uni handing out free food.
