Monster Karwendel Hike

Published on 2019-7-6 by Michael Stanton

In 24 hours of hiking, we cover 70 kilometers and 2000 meters up and down.

"That's a really moderate pace -- 3 kilometers an hour?" said a friend at Google.

It was the darkest time of night. 3 am. My stomach warm from Uli's peppermint tea. My nose full of the warm smell of me, emerging from my pillow, which was only my shoes. Christiane and Uli were there. I was safe enough to drop into sleep (snoring loudly, they told me later with a grin in the dark, known only by the uplift in the voice that betrays a smile). It's time to walk again.

We'd been carried to this point on Uli's vision: walk from Lengries to Scharnitz. From Isar to Isar, but not by the way of water, instead crawling a path that only a passionate lover of the mountains could craft. Fingers skirting over the shoulder of the Rißsattel, and down her neck to Vorderiss. Along the back of her spine to Hinteriss, patient for now. And then lower yet higher, guided by water to the heights. To the bells of the Ahornboden and faces of the animals regarding us in the dawn. Along her hips, and down her legs, down the generous valley, to the other Isar: the one that lies across pain and beauty. The end of a road.

He dreams big. He enticed his girl, which bodes well for him, and sank a hook in me as well. I am old and complacent. Worse, I like myself anyway. So I'm incorrigible. Still, I found I couldn't sleep the night before. It's the old excitement. The lover's thrill. The dark valleys and narrow passes. Where are we going?

My own girl, who knows who she is, was content to send me away with a few gifts. Food and Ibuprufen, perscription-strength. She is lovely.

We took the train to Lenggries, then walked along the Isar. Christiane and I were soon deep in highly technical conversation about the mechanics of that least mechanical thing: The Knowing of what you are. Awakening. How it might be found or lost. The many cul-de-sacs and errors on the Path. But the joy of the search. It is another Mountain. Inside, she sits on her haunches, waiting for you.

Uli, who I suspect knows all of this, walked beside us, feeling the sun on his right side and the possibility of cool water on his left.

We swam in the Jachen. Overcoming my fear of cold water only because of the scale of our untertaking, I revelled in the joy of water and vulnerability. I had a "I don't care," feeling. Refusing to think about how we'd possibly achieve our goal, I just enjoyed.

Refreshed, we climbed into a side valley I'm reluctant to name because it felt like a secret. The rivers here are allowed to oxbow and be what they are. The houses have no paths. They sit in the abundance of the meadow like secrets. It began to rain, first with the delicious smell of it and later the fat drops which mark the natural end of a summer day. Back in the main valley, now evening, Uli made us walk back a whole kilometer because he was allergic to the main road. To hear him describe it, it would have been as ugly as a Los Angeles freeway! "The cars, they go fast. And there is no room to walk," he said, stony-faced.

Clearly, we were travelling with an artist. And we must obey the rules of art. What we do must have a logic, and a secret. Keeping it, we backtracked to wooded ways and silent forests.

Later, we watched the sun going down from a bench in the valley. "I never saw an adult drink a 'Capri Sun,'" remarked Christiane, to which Uli nodded seriously. But it was a gift from my girl, stolen as I later found out, from her son. It was delicious! Uli produced a tiny vial of salt and applied it studiously to an enormous cucumber. He also shared a strange purple carrot, which I, ever phobic of vegetables and their hideous life, had to admit was pretty good. Christiane took pictures with an impressive camera and showed off her new compression socks. Somehow, she looked more qualified and professional in them, blue and black, snaking up to her knees like sleek riding boots. We set off again, arguing about electronic currencies -- a force for good or ill?

Darkness found us at the Rißsattel, surrounded by fireflies, proud that we'd avoided our headlamps. The place felt oddly magical. The view down to Vorderriss and out into blue shapes of the Karwendel contained the seed of a dark drama: who would we be when next the light returned? Carefully down the steep trail we descended, running into two young men in the middle of the slope. I sped by saying little, only noting that they kept bumping into each other and saying "oof!" like cartoon characters. Strangely, it didn't occur to me that they were drunk out of their minds. Christiane and Uli told me later about a strange rambling conversation with the benighted pair, who ended by resolving to turn and follow us deep into the Karwendel.

They even did, at least for a while. As we sat with our feet in the Isar we saw their headlamps stumbling and jerking down the steep trail above. Fools and children are protected, they say!

We joked about taking the subway into Vorderriss proper, but decided to stay in the outskirts because of crowds, even though the bar was closed. I'd been secretly hoping for a beer to make the walk to Hinteriss more pleasant, but the town was dead to the world.

I set off first alone, wanting to commune with the trees and the silent night. I listened to "Valtari," an album that deeply affected me. The fireflies kept me company, and the trees nodded and bowed. One day we will know each other, it is clear! They wait only for me to slow down.

The great bulk of peaks came into my life slowly, and departed just as slowly. Like so many things, they fill the sky and one day are gone.

I was in a heaven, where truth swirled amid distant lightning flashes and low, wispy clouds. I felt my companions behind me. I felt the mystery ahead. I felt the little bit of warmth and goodness that I had, and how bright it all is alone in the dark.

If I make myself smaller, I receive more of the world. Folded into the great stone and architecture of the Karwendel, I was an ant on a hopeless mission. My mission is hopeless still.

Awesome.

Discomfort rears his wooly head. I lay curled up on the only dry patch of ground I could find: the bare street. Uli looms in the darkness like a quizzical bear, with Christiane following crisply behind. They adopt my napping space, and I set off alone again, eager for more conversation with the trees. Amazingly, a car drove down the valley at 2 am. "They must be a murderer," I quipped, forgetting that if anyone out here is crazy, it's us!

In Hinterriss, I again slept on the street, but Uli discovered that the Visitor Center had a friendly and wind-protected upper entrance. Christiane started a pot of tea, announcing that she decided to stop here. Thinking of the warm and dry Inn across the street I realized that if they were open somehow I would stop immediately. "I have nothing to prove!" she said with an open smile. This is a deeply good thing, I thought. I'm carrying around a bundle of "I.O.U."'s to myself, a whole ledger-book full of notions that I want to live up too. How can I drop this thinking? "By simply dropping it," Christiane's smile seems to say.

We fell into slumber roughly together, though I snored within seconds of my head landing on my "pillow." It was a delicious nap. I dreamed, but now I only remember waves of energy cascading under my eyelids like ripples of sand on a beach. We left Christiane here with some food to keep her company until the hiker's bus in the morning. Uli carried a part of her forward, and she kept a piece of him at her side. This is understood. It is how we do it on this planet.

Marching like marionettes to warm up stiff muscles, we walked up the road, then to a forest road and finally trail, we were entering the Johannestal. I turned my headlamp to it's brightest setting, making our forest trail burn an iridescent green that was oddly magical.

Here I experienced a curious bifurcation of consciousness. I'd been up this valley once before, in a snowy November, walking the road tiredly with Mat and Ari. I became impatient and exhausted with the road, and the emotional state from that long ago day colored my thoughts. Nearby were worse thoughts, of guilt and recrimination. I'd fallen from the "Dorethea Wallner Gedächnis" route in the Wetterstein, and Mat caught my wrenching fall, tearing his ACL and leaving an angry scar from the rope across his neck. I'd seen my children before me in the fall and I'd felt incredible sadness as time stopped. I'd seen the piton rip out and the world turn upside down as I flipped over. "Too bad it ends this way," was my distinct thought.

It changed my life. Now I can say for the better. But for a long time it was just the introduction of a false note in a beautiful, simple chord.

I saw now why I was so cross 15 years ago walking the road. I'd been given a gift that I wished I could return. But when I say "I saw now," that isn't quite right. I only see it when writing this. In the pre-dawn with Uli, I only experienced anew those feelings. And I was resentful, angry and miserable.

And now my feet were burning, and there were too many miles to go. I sat in the bath of the consciousness I'd made for myself and found nothing good. I fell behind and dragged along. I resented Uli his health, and imagined that he paid nothing for it. "I think maybe I should return to Hinterriss," I said. Uli regarded me levelly. We both knew there was nothing to do but decided to go on or to return. And that this was a personal choice. I'd found a border in me.

I bumped along the wall of this border, black and smelling of industrial chemicals, pock-marked by unheard parts of me, who'd been maintaining this wall, left uncared for and unsupervised. I was at a real low point.

However, I kept walking, because my options were so simple. Sit and hope to get stronger, go back, or go forward. After I suggested going back I realized I'd much rather suffer and keep going. The drama of the steep valley walls and the growing light lifted my spirits a bit. Maybe this previous version of me, full of dark thoughts, was no more real than the wispy clouds now lifting from the valley floor. I can and will go on, because what lies ahead is more interesting than what lies behind. And for now I can still move my legs. With Uli far ahead as a guide, I plodded up the long street, past the homey X Huette, lit from within by golden light. Soon the wall of gray peaks loomed above and the bells of many cows marked the Kleine Ahornboden. Uli was resting on the wooden porch of a cabin. I joined him, sitting stupidly and searching for the energy to move uphill to the Karwendelhaus.

We set off, Uli again moving far ahead. I accepted that I'd lost my strength and had to move slowly. Big deal. However, there was a line of cows on the narrow trail between Latschen bushes, and separately Uli and I both had little dramas trying to get around them, or coax them to move just a little higher so we could pass. Forced to trot at one point, my heart hammering in my chest, I just managed to pass a cluster of cows who mixed resentful forward movement with long pauses to swivel their heads and stare at me. Eventually I got to a fence beyond which they couldn't pass and so I was free.

Then a cold and heavy rain started. My umbrella was useful, but by the time I reached the Karwendelhaus, my legs were frozen and shoes were sopping wet. Inside, I found Uli sitting with a breakfasting group in the packed and warm house. A somewhat awe-struck woman said she was leaving and left a place for me. (Later I found out why. She'd asked Uli where he started. He turned to her and rasped: Lenggries, delivering a palpable shock. She must have felt newly surrounded by people who look normal but are deep into madness!)

We sat and drank coffee, gradually feeling human again. Mindful of the blisters on my feet, and aware that the wet socks were about to cause many more, I got my feet dry and wrapped the poor things tenderly in my jacket. This temporary respite of a warm, dry home really saved me from much worse pains I'm sure.

Continued injections of coffee, milk, sugar and finally cake as the crowds gradually left their breakfast made us feel ready to move again. I'd suggested spending the night and using a vacation day Monday, but now fully warm and rested this again seemed like an overreaction. I really am easily unsettled by discomfort!

We set out, walking down a mix of road and trail under a cloudy sky. At least it wasn't raining, and views gradually increased down-valley. In fact, this valley (Karwendeltal) impressed me deeply. Always an amazing multi-tiered waterfall. Or an interesting array of caves high in a rock wall surrounded by vertiginous green slopes. The highest peaks looked impossibly far above, almost crystalline...protected by interlocking buttresses and ramparts. And the scale was enormous. Our broad and somewhat punishing valley, our never-ending descent curving gradually from west to south. I would see a side trail leading up one side or the other and groan aloud, only to imagine walking up it for any distance.

We stopped on some boulders and ate Uli's dates and chocolate (really amazing dark chocolate!). He was hoping it would be the last stop, but I hedged my bets, pretty sure that we still had a long way to go. "One more after this one!" I said weakly.

Indeed, the lower valley was still beautiful, but the length was wearing on us both. I said I had to stop at the next bench in the shade, then pitifully lay on the ground and put my feet up on the bench. I remembered I had an Ibuprofen tablet from Barbara, and took it. Ach -- suffer time!

We set off again, determined not to stop. This last 1.5 hours was quite tough. I remember breathing and limping for long periods, seeing only my feet and the road in front of me.

Uli wrote an article on DustyBoots.blog about planning and preparation for such hikes. He's got a few pictures from our trip in it.