Hoher Fricken (attempt)

Published on 2007-9-13 by Michael Stanton

Hoher Fricken (attempt)

September 13, 2007

Uli and I had a comedy of errors this morning. We hiked to Hoher Fricken, but my faulty memory led us up the wrong dirt road to start the thing. Then the trail petered out and we followed our nose up through steep, but fairly open forest for an hour before finally regaining the trail. Here we moved quickly until reaching the great basin below Bisher and Hoher Fricken. Again, I screwed up. I saw a faint path leading up to the ridge crest that matched what I took last time. But last time there was significant spring snow covering the horrible latschen trees. This time, the path didn't work at all. Finally, while we struggled in head-high latschen jungle, I looked at my watch. It was late. We needed to turn back immediately :-(.

Which we did, and to our credit we bombed down very quickly. I don't know the exact elevation but it's something like 4000 feet and then a long 1/2 mile or more of flat walking. It took an hour. Thanks to Uli for hurrying back with me! Just unbelievable how lost I can get...