Day 4 – Edelweiss Hut to Weichtalhaus

Daily Distance – 16km
Daily Ascent – 250m
Daily Descent – 750m
Total Distance – 83km
Distance Remaining – 967km

Today I jumped naked into a river. Well, maybe one day. For now I am still a little too English and not quite German enough to saunter naked down to the river like a contestant on “Austria’s Top Naked Swimmer”. Marking myself out instantly as a foreigner, my entry was rather more akin to the scuttle of a furtive crab who expected to be arrested at any moment. While the unlikelihood of a police officer springing up from behind a nearby rock is easy to process intellectually, the instinctive expectation of having to explain a charge of indecent exposure to your next employer remains. While I probably need another 50 years to work on my naked saunter, with 35 being spent mentally preparing for public nakedness, it is a part of German/Austrian culture that I appreciate. I find the openness, lack of judgement and comfort with themselves and others rather endearing.

Of course, all of this I processed after the fact. In the moment all I could reflect on was that crabs clearly have fewer nerves dedicated to detecting temperature!

Leaving Edelweiß hut this morning after a good breakfast, I met a couple who explained that they were just resting outside of the hut on their descent of Schneeberg (Snow mountain), the neighbouring mountain whose summit lies some 800m above the hut. Apparently they had been on the summit for the sunrise, although the reason could also just have been to make me feel lazy given the effect it had. Fortunately they seemed to find my comment about having tackled a breakfast mountain instead amusing, so I saved some face. In the process also marking the first time my brain has ever worked quickly enough to make a joke in German. Clearly I should regularly sleep for 9.5 hours per night. This also helped make up for the rather stilted breakfast conversation with the landlady of the Edelweiß hut. I did at least learn that July is always so quiet, although I don’t know why and she didn’t have a clue if many of the people who stay there are walking the Nordalpenweg. The only other thing that I understood was that they are usually closed today. Now this is a limitation of my German is that subtext is a totally foreign entity to me. I have literally no idea what the purpose of the comment was. It could have been a simple remark, or it could have been loaded with veiled resentment, it’s all the same to my ears. I imagine this is how autistic people live their whole lives.

In a concession to my lack of mountain fitness I went around, rather than over, Schneeberg today. This is a shame as it is the highest point in Niederösterreich (lower Austria) and I would have liked to see the summit view. However, for a number of reasons I chose to gift myself an easier day:

• I have 1500m to climb tomorrow with no definite place to sleep.
• I haven’t consumed nearly as much food as I anticipated at this point, so my food bag still weighs close to its original 3kg
• I don’t know if there are any water sources near the mountain summit, so I will have to carry up enough water to last until the following day.

The alternative route was at least much less strenuous than the official route and even provided some nice views of alpine pastures and most shrouded mountains. The most notable feature of the route was the number of crosses dedicated to people who lost their lives on that stretch. I counted one person struck down by lightning and three others struck by falling trees. Forestry appears to be a big industry in Austria, no surprise given the number of forests in this region, so it is at least nice to see that none of the memorials was particularly recent. Hopefully that points to improved safety standards in latter times. Tomorrow morning I will climb a number of iron ladders during my ascent, so will approach this with a careful frame of mind.