Monday, September 15, 2014

Swiss Alps- Day 8- Obersteinberg to Rotstock Hutte

 As we headed away from Obersteinberg, the clouds started playing games with us - giving us glimpses of blue sky and then socking us in.  The good news was that it wasn't raining, and for the most part, visibility was good.  In this picture, you can see the trail we walked, with the clouds dancing around in the valley.


This hike was another one of those cruel Alps hikes where we hiked all the way down to the river valley, only to hike all the way back up the other side.  One nuance of Swiss trails is that they have marks to follow the trails, often painted on rocks or trees are white-red-white stripes that signify the trail.  This is extremely helpful when trails get a little hard to see or if visibility is bad.  These marks, in addition to the very well-signed trail junctions, make the Swiss trails pretty easy to follow.

After seven days of hiking, our legs had maybe become a little accustomed to the steepness of the trails and we actually made it to our next hut a little early.  This was a good thing, as it started raining right when we got there!  This is Rotstockhutte, another very rustic mountain hut experience--


In case you are wondering what mountain hut accommodations look like, this is an example of the dorm style.  In some places, you can pay for your own private room (those are more like hotels)...but most of the time, this is what you get.  Absolutely one hundred times better than sleeping in a wet, cold tent.


One cool thing that happened at Rotstock, is that Scott got to witness the helicopter dropping off goods and picking up trash.  They get a food delivery once a week, and also have trash taken away once a week.  It's a pretty quick operation, the helicopter comes in, hovers with a net of food on a rope, the people detach that and attach the trash net and off he goes.  Scott even also helped them unload our week's supply of food into the cellar!


Since it was Friday night, this hut was a little more full of people than our last few had been.  We had a great time chatting over dinner with a couple from the UK, and 3 gentlemen from The Netherlands. We also got in our time of beers and mappin', which has become part of our hut life routine. :)


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