Things are different down here

The biggest difference since we crossed the Italian border is what people drink. They still drink beer, but the fact that a beer is way more expensive, while wine is considerably less so, I'd proof that agriculture and priorities are somewhat different down here.

The other difference is that the German dialect these guys speak is sometimes impossible to understand. When they talk to me I understand them, but as soon as they speak to another local, they might as well be speaking Hungarian.

The landscape and hut attitude has changed somewhat, but it is still seriously congenial. We have had a few hard days of hiking, but have felt at home wherever we've stayed.

Petra's brother, Lothar (Lothar, of the hill people.....), has joined us for a couple of days, and he is very tired after the first day. He is, as I write, snoring like a chainsaw, and I am glad that one of us can sleep.

Our room tonight is in a very old house, and it is the coolest room we have stayed in so far. Gotta go, because I have to find a t-shirt to put in Lothar's mouth.

Feelin' hot, hot, hot!

It is blazing hot here in Bozen.

A little about Bozen before we go on. This region belonged to Austria before WWII, but was given to Italy after the war. German is still the predominant language here, and it very much feels like Austria here.

One cool thing is that most people here can jump back and forth between Italian and German with great ease, and this makes sitting around at outdoor cafes especially interesting, as the people will switch between languages at will, sometimes in the middle of a conversation. Very cool.

The town itself is lovely, and we spent the day looking around, eating and drinking a very cool drink called a Venetian. It is a mix of Aperol, prosecco and mineral water, with ice and an orange slice. I will add thus to my favorite recipes.

We spent the afternoon at the pool, but we barely put a dent in our farmer/sock tans. We met the handyman from the hotel -his name is Ronald- and his enthusiasm for Bozen was highly infectious. He clearly loves his home, and Petra and I are also believers at this point. It is wonderful here.

We are looking forward to getting back on the trail tomorrow, though. It was great, but equally weird to be in the city, and for all of its positive points, we are ready to do the Sherpa act again.

Impressions

We had no reception for a few days, and as this makes catching up while writing on an iPhone keyboard laborious, I will keep it short.

Here are our noteworthy events:
Petra's boot seam tore open, and we were able to find a shoe repairwoman (sexy!) with unexpected ease.

Petra loses her favorite pair of shades. She is devastated, but refuses to replace them until we get to Italy ("where the fashion comes from").

We bought poles, and now use them all the time.

Watched the US soccer team lose to Ghana. I wished a year of loose bowel movements on the the nation of Ghana, but took it back once I replayed the game in my mind, suddenly remembering that our boys played like crap, and that Ghana brought its A-game.

At the Karwendelhaus (a killer hut, I must say), watched the German team -my second favorite team, for reasons that should be obvious- kick the bejesus out of the English. And no bitching about disallowed goals, England fans, the Germans beat you 4-1. That is what is known in soccer circles as a serious ass kicking, so suck it!

Rob establishes a positive relationship with large glasses of fresh buttermilk.

Petra drops a pole on the trail, and it lands in the only loogey that we see that day. Gross.

We did, not counting our detours, 76 kilometers since our last post.

We met some great people, and stayed up way past quiet hours singing and drinking with them at the Lamsenjochhuette.

These were some great days, and we just crossed the border into Italy in a train. Tomorrow is our first non-hiking day, and I suppose we will spend a large chunk of it eating and trying to even out our sexy farmer's tans.

Rob reporting.

Three Philosophers

This was one hell of a day. We hiked a little over 15 kilometers as the crow flys, but we do not have the wings to keep the distance that low. We had a steep descent out of the mountains, followed by a long and steady downhill through a lush valley.

On the way, we met a 75 year old man who was almost at the hut when we left it. This means he probably started his trek around 5:30 or so. I would have been fighting off the urge to pee around that time, followed by another hour and a half of dreaming about chasing people around with a Super Soaker that didn't work. He talked about his travels through the alps with his wife, and how he was happy that he could still get out and hike once in a while, even though his wife was paralyzed now from a stroke. He told us that his memories from his time in the alps with his wife have carried them both through the tough times they have faced, and that we should use the time we have while we are still young. Later that day we sat next to an old couple, and they delivered the same message about enjoying life when you can. Towards the end of our hike we met up with a mountain biker who tried to help us find our way to the little town we we headed to, and after he heard what we were up to, he told us it must be great that are able to pick up and go, just roaming around and checking out the world. He has cancer, something like leukemia, but he is beyond treatment. He told us to get out and do everything while we can. He was beyond helpful, and was out there tearing it up on his mountain bike, even though he is sick.

It was a good lesson that day.

Rob Decides it is Time for a Diet

Like a dog who has been walked too long, I stopped and refused to continue until the conditions were right. All around us were the aged and infirm, and somehow these unready looking folks were hiking the same route we were. "What is different about these two people from Denver," you ask? First hint: you read a poem about it in eighth grade, and in this poem somebody shoots a bird. Hint two: "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Answer: Fifteen kilos of albatross around our necks, that's what.

We inventoried our packs, found out that we are insane, and decided to send fifteen kilos of stuff we will not use back to home base in Pfullendorf.

We dragged the full load up a steep, 800 meter climb, and after the climb down the other side of the mountain this morning, I simply refused to do the next, much longer hike without rethinking the amount of gear we had.

We began hike two for the day with much less weight (about 25 pounds each according to the post office scale), and it was a surreal mix of joy and suck. We climbed steep and steady for about two hours, then it got beautiful and ugly at the same time. We left a thickly-wooded forest, and started a long climb through a shaky scree field. To spice it up some, we scrambled and prayed up narrow paths with long drops, and we emerged into a lush field. The last section consisted of about an hour of steep switchbacks, and we finally got to the hut. The view reminds me of what the Grand Tetons would look like if you copied
Them, and dropped them into the landscape every mile or so for as long as you could see. Crazy beautiful. No cell reception up here (thank god) so this post will go up a day late.

Cows on a trail

It wasn't quite as dramatic as snakes on a plane... They were actually very friendly. We encountered them after a break on the Gartner Alm, where the owner greeted us with a shot which I followed up with a glass of raw cow's milk and Rob with a wheat beer. It was a really nice break, and it's just amazing how some people stay in the middle of nowhere with their cows for the whole summer,serving hikers speck, cheese and other homemade goodiest. The cows and their pretty sounding cow bells accompanied us for most of the upper part of the hike which was strenuous and steep, but the hut was worth it! Very pretty and very empty - we even have our own mattress camp. There's running hot water, hot food and even cell phone reception! We had dinner with the other two guests, an older French couple, also hiking the Via Alpina. My French was certainly rusty, but we managed. They came from the direction we'll be walking in tomorrow. All clear - according to them. Germany just won against Ghana, and will advance in the world cup, along with the USA - yay! It's all good. Time to rest up for tomorrow.

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 :)