Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Blons

Biberacher Hutte

21.9

920.4

Mostly sunny, humid and very warm

Biberacher Hutte

Fruit, yoghurt, rolls and jam for breakfast; two filled rolls for lunch; soup, schnitzel and potato salad, and cake for dinner.

None

I was late to bed, but still managed to get up in time for the 6:30am breakfast and checked out at 7:30am.  With perfect timing, that was when the supermarket opened, and I stocked up on a few things and bought a couple of fresh rolls for lunch.  I then wandered down to the bus stop and had to wait until 8:10am for a bus back to Thuringen, where after a short bit of confusion about where I needed to be to get the bus back to Blons, I again timed it perfectly, just finding the bus stop as a bus arrived (not another one for 90 minutes) and was back in Blons in time to start hiking by 9am.

It was already quite warm again and the early couple of kilometres was not that pleasant as the trail was narrow, overgrown and up and down, and seemed to go to great lengths to avoid joining the road which paralleled it just up the hill.  However, further on it improved and followed the fast-flowing Lutz River upstream for sometime before climbing up to the small village of Buchboden.  Most of the hiking along the river had been in the forest and relatively flat, so the heat had not been an issue, but once past Buchboden the trail climbed very steeply through farmland and then forest, and I was drenched in sweat, and being regularly bitten by the very annoying Austrian version of the March fly.

I stopped just past a stream crossing in the forest for lunch and had a wash and rinsed out my T-shirt for a bit of heat relief.  There was a bit more cloud in the afternoon but it was still very warm as I continued to climb past the treeline and into the high alpine pastures.  My path then left the farmland behind and the trail became quite technical as it climbed up to around 2000m and crossed numerous streams and patches of snow.  The latter weren't that dangerous, but they made the trail difficult to follow and were slow going.

I finally reached Biberacher Hutte, my destination, soon after 5pm.  It's my first Austrian Alpine Hut and I'm not sure of all the rules yet.  It had a shower, but I discovered it was cold water straight from the snow, so very refreshing.  There are a few other hiking groups in residence, and everything is very jolly.  The proprietress tells me that part of my route tomorrow is closed by snow, but there are some alternative routes so I should be OK, but it's still not a good omen for the track ahead.

At dinner time I was invited to join the large hiking group (14) who are members of a chapter of the Swiss Alpine Club who regularly do midweek hiking trips.  A few of them spoke good English and I chatted for a while after dinner.  Feeling tired, I went to bed about 9pm, but could hear them all signing songs downstairs in the dining room.