Day 39 – Spitzsteinhaus to Brünnsteinhaus

Daily Distance – 20km
Daily Ascent – 1000m
Daily Descent – 900m
Total Distance – 639km
Distance Remaining – 378km

As of this evening, there are now only nineteen of sixty stages remaining. Reflecting on this, I feel a mix of disbelief, sadness and relief that soon I will finally escape the endless accommodation planning that this trip entails.

It has been a subject of some debate among Gareth, Phil and myself about what constitutes the correct level of preplanning. We all like the freedom to be able to walk a long day if we feel like it, or have a shorter day when feeling tired, but this approach is entirely incompatible with pre-booking accommodation. The approach that is correct for each person seems to hinge on a base level of optimism that something will turn up. I find blindly trusting to Providence stressful, so really prefer to have a guaranteed end goal sorted. Of course, the flip side is that I spend a lot of time stressing about coming up with a plan and hoping that it doesn’t get derailed by the weather or some other misfortune.

Accommodation issues aside, barely a day passes without being confronted by a beautiful landscape of mountains, lakes or some other aspect of nature. The days blur into one another after a while, so it won’t be until sifting through my photos at home that I truly gain an appreciation of all that I have seen. The biggest challenge that I have found is one of complacency and under-appreciation. It is all too easy to compare every sight, smell and experience to the best of what has gone before and fail to appreciate that what is laid before me is special in its own right. A good lesson to remember in regular life too.