Wank Night Hike

Published on 2005-10-15 by Michael Stanton

Wank, October 2005

After a great day of bike riding, rock climbing (very poorly on my part), and eating Indian food with Ari and Matt, I was too excited to sleep. So I left the house at 11:30 pm with two headlamps, both with dying batteries. I hiked up the road to the start of the hike up the "Mount Si" of Garmisch-Paternkirchen: Der Wank!

The hike was straightforward. I took a wrong turn at one point, ending up at a Mittelstation lift, which cost about 20 minutes. Continuing, I was impressed by the expanding views of the lights of the town below. The stars were very beautiful too, with the cloudy arc of the Milky Way directly overhead. At the top, I stood in a brisk wind next to a high crucifix. Just wonderful.

On the way down I had to deal with a landslide that I had mysteriously avoided before. For the life of me, I couldn't find the side trail I had used, and the headlamps just got dimmer. Finally I committed to crawl and crab across it. I did well until the last few feet before regaining trail: at that moment both feet slid sickly into 2 feet of quicksand! My shoes were nearly sucked off as I made the final steps to reach the trail. Here I was with a dim yellow headlamp, in the Bavarian Alps, at 3 am, with an appointment in Munich at 9 am, struggling to regain the trail! What a puzzle life is sometimes!