Hiking in the Vosges Mountains
Many years ago (1979-80 to be exact) Frank and I lived in Viernheim for a year, a town in southern Hessen. Frank was sent there by Lever Brothers, the company he was working for at the time, and the plan was to be there for about three years. After a year he was transferred back to the headquarters in Hamburg and we moved back to Adendorf. Of course, if we had known, we would never have moved, but it all worked out for the best for reasons I won’t go into here. While living in Viernheim we made friends with a family there. They introduced us to quiche and the Pfaelzer Forest, among other things, and since they had five children who were all older than Lee and Jenny, we had a seemingly endless list of babysitters, who taught the girls to crochet and who made clothes for their Monchichis. We’ve kept in touch over the years and joined them several times on their annual family hike in the Vosges mountains of Alsace.
Frank and I are not so much into hiking, both of us being flatlanders from way back, but we have managed to keep up, especially since several of the group were quite a bit older than us. However, this year over the long May Day weekend when we gathered for the hike in front of our hotel things had changed. Several people I had counted on to be with us had cancelled at the last minute and the parents, Elisabeth and Martin, didn’t feel up to the hike that was planned. So it was just Frank and myself and three younger, fitter, hobby hikers who think nothing of climbing mountains for fun and do it regularly. I was way out of my league.
Our intrepid leader was Veit, Dorothee’s partner, and I think if you look closely you can see that he is a little diabolic. Or maybe it is just that he can’t imagine anyone being a lot less fit than he is. (I’m going for the diabolical explanation!)
The rest of our group consisted of Frank, Dorothea and her sister Steffanie. (That’s a horrible picture of Veit, but I cannot be denied a modicum of revenge!)
So I had a plan. We were hiking to the top of a mountain where there is a restaurant and Elisabeth and Martin were meeting us there. Maybe I could make it that far and then I could ride back to the hotel with them. Good idea! Elisabeth wished us a good time.
So we started on our way right from in front of the hotel. Perhaps you can judge the steepness by looking at the mountains in the picture.
I have to admit that the path we took was very nice and at times breathtakingly beautiful, but did it have to keep going up and up?
There were fields of daffodils. (Those little yellow dots on the bottom right are daffodils. You'll have to take my word for it.)
There was also a waterfall that we heard a long time before we saw it.
About half way up we reached a reservoir....
....where we stopped for a short discussion of world events.
From here there was a noticeable change in the path. Things got a lot more difficult.
Time for a little rest.
We continued on.
Sometimes there was a bridge.....
..... and sometimes there wasn't.
The climbing got a little harder.
OH!!! (Attention! Passage Difficile)
We're close to the top now.
Time for a break to enjoy the view.
We were late getting to the place we wanted to meet Elisabeth and Martin and where we wanted to have a nice bowl of hot soup and maybe a delicious piece of cake and where I wanted to climb into a warm car and be driven down the mountain. But in the end it didn't matter.
They were closed until the middle of May. (It was April 29th.) And when we managed for the first time to call Elisabeth and Martin on the cell phone, they told us all the roads were closed due to the snow! So I had no choice but to climb back down the mountain.
It wasn't easy.
We had to take a different path down than the one we had planned to take because we weren't sure of the way through the snow. Luckily Martin came to pick us up at the bottom because I could hardly walk any longer. We had been gone for over eight hours and my knees were killing me. After a very long, very hot shower I had recovered enough to eat most of a six course dinner that Veit and Frank ordered for us as soon as we got back to the hotel. (I had to skip one course, actually it was the main course, but I had to have room for dessert.)
It was by far the most difficult hike I've ever been on, but as you can see I did live to tell about it.
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