the ice burned my legs

i was cold and tired when i arrived back at my hotel from the hike up napf depicted in my last post. i took a hot shower, investigated a few possibilities for the next day, and went to bed.

jeans or shorts? i didn't have the greatest options for hiking in switzerland in may. i chose the shorts.

marbach at noon. i was stiff and tired. there are yellow flowers and pretty architecture.





there was a hill called hengst. i didn't know anything about it. i had been contemplating a hike either of hengst or hohgant. "it looks like a really easy route," we had concluded. i had started late--trains out of marbach left earlier than trains out of kemmeriboden, so hengst won over hohgant. hohgant looked scary, anyways, once i saw it in person.



lush greenery. the sun was out. warm and nice. water trickles over the trail--rocks are smooth and veined.

snowline was about 2000 feet below the summit. that wasn't too big of a problem for the first 500 feet or so. at a moment the depth of the snow increased dramatically while the angle of the slope also increased dramatically. i lost the trail, such as it was. i started just going up.



hengst is hengst. it was the easiest of easy options. three hours later my exposed legs were bright red, burnt by the ice i continually scraped them against (probably aided by sun reflecting off the snow). fresh bursts of snow had scoured an avalanche chute a quarter of a mile from my route the whole way to the summit ridge. small slips had summoned great gasps when i 1000 feet of relentless sliding loomed below me. but i topped out quickly enough. i had shaky legs.







after tagging the summit, i had decided that the route i had ascended would be no good for the descent. i estimated where kemmeriboden would be, and calculated that i would get there with a little bit of time to spare before the last bus out. i descended the back side of the mountain. looking back to where i had come from, i saw only white.



the snow gradually dissipated. a trail--a good sign. and then a rough road, then smooth, then paved. a village. i had missed kemmeriboden badly. half an hour later i was climbing onto the last bus out of kemmeriboden. the villagers in the intervening three miles had look at me bemusedly as i jogged by stiffly, backpack in tow. my shower was slightly longer that night.