Soiernspitze

Published on 2021-6-11 by Michael Stanton

I borrowed Barbara's bike "Red" (her fathers bike) and pushed and pedeled up the steep gravel road leading to the Vereiner Alm and the Krinner-Kofler-Hütte (which might be a good place to stay overnight in the future -- it is a "self-service" hut).

After about 1.5 hours, I was there. I sat a while and ate some oatmeal for breakfast, drinking water clearly marked as undrinkable. Pff.

Heading up the trail under clouds, I reached the Jöchel saddle, where views become rather alpine, where Gämse scatter, running down the mountain to get away from the strange figure. I admired the Karwendel walls, and remembered doing the Karwendel Traverse with my boys in 2017. I saw us picking our way along that trail, sometimes in snow, 4 years before.

I got the feeling that ghosts must get, looking back into the valleys that they love too much to leave, though their people passed through and didn't look back.

The trail climbed steeply to the summit. It rained a bit, and I had the joy of trying out my "Frogg Toggs" cheap but capacious rain jacket.

On the summit in a blind cloud, the vision cleared momentarily to offer a view down to the north and the Soiernhaus. Another place of memories. I smiled and remembered how we amused ourselves hiking down from there by imagining the horror of being in one of those great bouncy adventure balls one sees in videos of New Zealand, bouncing down a large mountain -- however, one in which the ambitious tourism company had unwisely placed a window unit air conditioner on rusty screws which failed catastrophically on this descent. Rowan, Elijah and I laughed and laughed, imagining the sheer violence of being in that container with a 40 kilo metal box lashing around, always hitting the passengers in the most uncomfortable places, like elbows and fingers.

I worked on my manual camera photography, a hobby which a man takes up when he anticipates a great increase in free time, which he busily fills.

Metal in my foot complained on the descent, but then the bike ride was fast and easy. This country would be hard without a bike!