Day 43 – Lengries (almost) Rest Day

Daily Distance – 6km
Daily Ascent – 0m
Daily Descent – 1000m
Total Distance – 708km
Distance Remaining – 309km

The alpine hut culture of Europe is unique the world over. With that in mind, I set out these survival tips for the uninitiated:

• Your sleeping mattress will come equipped with a pillow and a blanket. Guests are expected to provide their own liner sack, essentially a large sock that one sleeps in. The purpose of the liner is to reduce the required frequency of bed linen washing. However, this point is about the pillows. They are almost always the same design and for all the depth and support they offer may as well be made from leftover schnitzel. Bringing an additional pillow, or pre-trip training to origami clothes into a suitable support, is essential.
• Hut expansions are carried out along the same lines as new housing developments in England. The number of sleeping places are greatly expanded, but the capacity of essential services remains unchanged. In the case of huts, this means toilets. Endeavouring, whenever possible, to make toilet trips early, late, and never with a particular sense of urgency is a recipe to beat the queues and makes for a stress free life. Especially important given the minimal quantity of clothes contained by the average hiker’s rucksack.
• Theseus braved no graver labyrinth than that created in the hut drying room. A humid maze of sweaty garments dangling from the ceiling like bats with inadequate personal hygiene. A minotaur the drying room may lack, but if you make the mistake of hanging your garments at the back of the room, the cloying stench will have you wishing the greatest issue were mythical bovine. Always hang clothes as close to the door as possible.
• A sleeping mask and ear plugs are worthwhile investments. When sleeping in a dormitory, there will always be at least one person who stomps around getting ready for bed at 10:30 (hiker’s midnight + 1:30) after you’re already sleeping. Also, it is far from unrealistic to expect that some people may wake up at 03:00 and wake everybody up leaving the room.
• Expect to hassle the hut staff for an earlier than usual breakfast at almost every hut. Breakfast typically starts at between 07:30 and 08:00 depending on hut. If you have a long day ahead, walking out of the door no later than 07:00 is optimum. Most guests seem to be day hikers out for a few days in the mountains, for whom a more relaxed schedule is preferable. For anyone pushing for longer days, either bring your own breakfast, or mentally prepare yourself to be a pushy nuisance.
• Avoid huts which have easy access from a nearby town at all costs, especially on a Friday or Saturday. These are what has come to be termed, “Party”, or “town huts”. The hut staff are often perfectly nice, but the guests are usually more motivated by drinking and partying until the late hours, rather than a genuine love of hiking and the outdoors. This causes, for me at least, two main issues. The first is that hikers in the wilderness are generally social folk, whereas towns are less social places. For example, it is typical to greet every hiker or cyclist one meets on trail, but how often do we greet people in towns and cities? Almost never. I find this attitude carries over as the easy access allows the hut to become an extension of the town, so people keep far more to the social group they arrived with. The second, and more predictable problem, is that hikers usually go to bed at around 21:00 and rise with the sun. When intoxicated people stumble to bed after 23:00, it tends to be rather disruptive to good sleep. Although no doubt they would also complain about people setting alarms for 06:00 or earlier.

I have been fortunate that the nice receptionist at the campsite let me check in very early today. Officially check-in is at 15:00, but my turning up at 09:00 caused no problem and has allowed me to fully enjoy my day. The main attraction of Lenggries is the Isar river, which is a big draw for white water paddling excursions. When not eating or drinking coffee, I enjoyed a few hours paddling and sunning myself on the shore. We seem to have passed from the rainy season back into a heat wave, which helped with drying, but with two long stages ahead the extra quantity of water to carry is decidedly unwelcome.

Anyway, after a very poor night’s dormitory sleep last night, I am glad to have my cosy, single person, tent tonight. In the morning I need to run to the grocery store and then start hiking to get back on schedule for my hotel booking in the next town. Sometimes more than others the luxury of town is difficult to leave.