Up the Alps, Down a "Bier"

Hello, Family! So, here we go... the first round of Alps photos! This first one is our view the morning we left. A bus drove us from our hotel in the valley up to about the half-way mark altitude-wise. Lots of shade because the mountains are just so darn huge. This photo overlooks the "Lechtal" - the valley of the Lech River.

This is a group photo of the adults we went with. There were 6 of us all together. Fabi and I are not featured in this lovely shot, but you can see Markus and Anja (friends of the family) and Margit and Hansi (the latter being his normal goofy self).

Then we have my wonderful Julie Andrews impression.

... and some robustly healthy cows who let us walk right through their grazing space. How the cows made it up to that altitude eludes me, but they were there nontheless, bells a' ringing.

Fabian strikes a Tirolan pose at the almost-top. From this point (which is comparable in height to Emerald Lake at the end of on our hike in Colorado), we looked up in front of us and saw crumbly rock, with no real trail in sight. Turns out there WAS a trail, you just couldn't see which direction it went more than 10 feet in front of you. Switchbacks galore.



 Then after another strenuous 30 minutes, we reached the TIP top of this particular Alp. My legs were about dead, and Fabi had to carry my backpack for me and fed me a granola bar in order for me to make it up, but I did it! You really don't want to see the way we took back down, on the other side of the mountain - SO steep!

But finally, about halfway back down the other side, we arrived at the Hütte, where we ordered Spezi soda, then beer, then water, then dinner, then a schnapps - all over the course of 4 relaxing hours, sitting at a picnic bench overlooking the valley.  I also got Hansi to say "up a mountain, down a beer!"

A Hütte is typically pretty rustic - only cold water and a "washroom" but no real showers. Still, they fed us a warm meal and breakfast, and we enjoyed the comeraderie of singing schlager songs with some fairly drunken Germans from Cologne while playing Jenga in the dining room after dark. We slept on the very top floor in the "Lager" - a large room with mattresses in a row. At breakfast, we heard some very happy yodlers scattered in the hills around us.



Last but not least, we did not forget to bring along Fabi's custom-made T-shirt from Lisa, and he did an almost perfect impression of the hiker on his chest! (Sorry it's sideways, I'm still getting used to this blog.)

After the long hike, it was nice to swim in one of the lakes in Bavaria on our way home. Then we had pizza all together before going back our separate ways. I can still feel my thigh muscles like crazy... and squatting is temporarily out of the question. But the views were fantastic, and I've already told the Heidrichs I would love to do it again some time!