Into the wild (and back)

Yesterday, the weather had yet to turn, so we modified the beginning of our trip, and decided to go to Greece instead. Not really, but it was certainly a topic of discussion. Hopefully the warming weather will allow us to avoid this. Keep in mind, it is not cold here, but one late snowstorm threw a wrench in the works.

The word from the mountains was that we would need crampons if we wanted to follow the first part of our proposed route, so we did a little modifying, deciding to take a lower hike, followed by a train ride to get us further along our original path, and hopefully the heat catches up with our plans.

The hike, a steep up and down ten kilometers or so, was classic low-alpine cow country. We climed a steep couple of hours, lulled by the sound of cowbells in the distance. Every cow has a bell, and considering that they are pretty dense this low in the Alps this time of year, we heard the clanging of the girls' bells for most of the time we were underway.

The scene was a mix between steep fields and wooded paths, but green was everywhere we looked. Halfway down the path was a hut and a little restaurant where we had glasses of raw milk and some decent, but not great, eats. The milk was great, and I was glad to find it raw. "Restaurant," you ask? There farmers and farms all over these valleys, so there is often a place where farm meets kitchen, and we feelthe need to take advantage of this whenever possible.

After lunch (did I mention the apple
cake?) we hiked for about an hour through a delightful mix of deep mud and cow shit, and we were happy about the next stream we crossed. The last part of the hike led us back through a couple of small towns, one of which is celebrating its 1150th aniversary. That means established in 860 AD for those of you who might be a little math challenged. That is a long time (I cannot say "a long fucking time for fuck's sake," because Petra said I should try and keep it clean). Either way, there are some old towns.

We spent the night in a campground near Sontofen, and now we are on our way over the Austrian border, and there we will try and get back on our original path. We will let you know if the snow eases up enough to get up into high ground, otherwise, this blog will be headed south for a few days :)