Quite!

As promised, there’s not been much in the way of walk-related blogging since Flicka’s return from Oz. But I haven’t been idle! The past couple of weeks have seen me back walking, or at least have seen me starting to get back in training for walking.

Surprisingly, I’ve been doing this quite sensibly. (Note here, especially those of you who are not entirely familiar with the native English-speaker’s use of the word ‘quite’, that this word can have a wealth of positive and negative meaning, from ‘extremely’ to ‘hardly’. Thus ‘quite good’ can mean anything from ‘excellent’ through ‘average’ to ‘truly appalling’.) I started off with that milk run I’ve referred to before – the 14.5 km across the Kaiserstuhl to Endingen; then, two days later, a longer Kaiserstuhl walk, from Bahlingen to Breisach, a distance of 18.5 km; then, again after a couple of days’ break, the round trip from home to Breisach and back – 22 km, mostly on the flat. Everything seemed to work well, even allowing for the fact that I had an almost empty rucksack each time. What was great was that it was ideal walking weather. All quite sensible.

Now fast-forward to yesterday. Again it was ideal walking weather, so this quite sensible person said to himself, “Oh, there’s that stretch of the Westweg you still haven’t done, from Wiedener Eck to Titisee. How about filling that in?” First stop then of course, quite sensibly, was the internet, to the webcams on the Feldberg, to check the snow cover. OK, still some snow there, but most of it seems gone. Off then early to Wiedener Eck, with memories of having hobbled there from Belchen two years ago. Yesterday it felt like another world – sun, a gentle breeze, soft and springy paths up through the woods – and my legs and feet were enjoying themselves. Until just after Notschrei.

Wiedener Eck to Titisee

Notschrei is where the main cross-country ski area begins, which leads up and across to the south-western flank of the Feldberg. (I’ve put in the Garmin profile of yesterday’s walk. The area I’m referring to runs from about Km 8 to about Km 14.) Of course the ski season is well and truly over now, so yesterday there weren’t any skiers about. All the painstakingly prepared snow trails were nevertheless still in existence, albeit in a partially melted state, and – what’s worse – they covered most of the Westweg. Any truly sensible person would of course have realised that this stretch of the Westweg isn’t really walkable this early in the year, particularly in fell walking shoes! This quite sensible person hadn’t realised that, so on through the snow he had to trudge. Eventually he made it to the snow-free tracks on the Feldberg itself, stopping there at the St Wilhelmer Hutte for a break and a well-earned cup of coffee.

After that it was up to the Feldberg summit and over onto the steep and relatively narrow path down the north-eastern flank. There are no cross-country ski trails there, simply because it’s almost entirely dense woodland. Don’t think, however, that that means no snow! Again any truly sensible person would have realised that the path was liable to have snow on it, in varying depths and with varying amounts of melt. Again this quite sensible person hadn’t, so he had some two kilometres of quite unpleasant walking to do – sometimes sinking to his calves in snow and slush.

Conditions got better further down, as you’d expect. Eventually I reached Titisee and from there took the train home. The walk from Wiedener Eck to Titisee totalled 33 km, with 960 m of total ascent. The sensible walker would have managed this in just over eight hours (Naismith time). This quite sensible walker took only 6 hours and 43 minutes. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the meaning of ‘quite sensible’!

 

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