So far, this blog has been about doing big scary things. I have abandoned my law career for six months of voluntary unemployment in order to actively pursuing my writing career. But, doing the big scary things made me wonder about the small ones too. I suddenly started thinking of all those things I had said I’d like to do, or to try, and chickened out, or made excuses about why I couldn’t do them even though I’d like to. I started exploring the option of actually just doing them. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? I signed up for evening classes, I took up running and ran a 10km mud run and I began to dream of even more challenging adventures. I had always wanted to travel but, growing up in a family where our annual holiday was always under canvas and always within the UK, it seemed a daunting prospect; too daunting until now.
In May, I booked a seat on a cheap flight and set off, alone, for the first time. I wasn’t brave enough to go totally solo yet so I met my sister in Germany and, together, we disappeared into the woods for a two day hike. 28 miles over the first, third and fourth highest peaks in the Black Forest.
The closest I had ever come to this was a three day hike with my Dad on the South Downs when I was in primary school and my sister had never even come that close. Between us we had two broken pairs of boots, one borrowed map, one cheap rucksack, and one no-longer-waterproof raincoat (my sister bought one on sale the morning we set off so we eventually had one each).
We knew we wanted to mostly stick to the WestWeg path and we had made a booking at a guest house on top of the Stübenwasen for that night and that was the sum total of our knowledge setting out.
So, inexperienced and ill-equipped, bellies full of creamy, cheesey käsespätzle, we set off, climbing up the slopes through the pines.
The first day, we had to cover 16 miles and climb the highest peak: Feldberg. Our trail wound past chocolatey-red squirrels and flat stones piled up in precarious stacks and lonely houses with the chalk markings of Epiphany scrawled above their doors. We walked fast because we had no idea how long the walk would take us and, the further we walked, the more dangerous nightfall in the forest felt.
Eventually we made it to Feldsee; a circular, glacial lake like a thumbprint pressed into the side of the mountain. On almost all sides the crystal water reflects layers of pines towering over it up the dazzlingly steep sides of the Feldberg. And, above the trees, rises the pointed, snowy peak of the mountain itself. Everything we had seen so far had been beautiful but it was worth the march through it to get to this point. It is everything you hope to discover on a Black Forest adventure.
After lingering in the lustre of Feldsee for a while, we curved around the shore of the lake and into the forest once more, zigzagging up the side of the mountain. Trees had fallen across the way and rockfalls had made the route invisible in some places but we scrambled our narrow path up, trying to ignore the perpetual drop beside us down to the milky-blue water below.
At last, we came out into the snowy open and, weary now, approached the wooden veranda of the café on the way to the Feldberg’s summit. It was closed. Windows shuttered and door locked. We flopped down onto one of the wooden benches outside and anxiously stretched out the map to check our route.
There was a young man nearby chain-smoking and building a handrail out of thin silver birch trunks with their silvery skins still intact. After a moment he approached and asked if we would like something to eat. We said we would, but the café was closed. He held up a key and smiled, “what would you like?”
We sat with chips and hot chocolates and slices of apfelkuchen wrapped up for the journey and the sun came out from behind the clouds and gleamed off the snow and warmed our arms and faces. It was a glorious moment but we could see the sun was getting lower in the sky and we still had miles to go.
We now walked at the highest point of the forest and the views were stunning. We crunched through snow along the top of the world, looking across the valleys gilded with the light of golden hour and counting seven layers of blue mountains in the distance. The wonder of what we had seen so far filled us and we still had more to see: a golden statue of Jesus on the cross rising from the mountain-top, a capercaillie performing to his would-be mate at the edge of the tree-line and the sound of his cane-dropping call. Then, eventually, we rounded a corner and saw the welcoming wooden face of our guest house.
Not a moment too soon either. By the time we had deposited our rucksack in our room beneath the eaves and settled at the table in the bar with cups of hot black tea, night had fallen over the mountain and rain began to beat the earth outside and the roof above.
We fell asleep that night with the rain as our soundtrack, content with hot showers and clean sheets and tired legs.
The next morning, we enjoyed a classic German breakfast: boiled eggs, an array of bread rolls, cheese and cream cheese and jams and Nutella and apple puree and muesli. I love the simplicity and the variety in a German breakfast buffet and, for me, breakfast is an elastic feast – best stretched out for as long as possible. But, there was more of the world to see, so we packed our one bag and set off again.
It had rained all night and streams ran down the mountains and cut across our path. The mountains sat in cloud and, all day, we walked with only the ghosts of trees and the soft drips through leaves onto the scented pine needle floor for company.
It became eery. In some places, the pristine trees gave way to the venting ground for angry giants; trees split half way up, bark shreds hanging down like streamers, some fallen into others and some hanging two or three feet from the ground.
At one point were curving up a mountain on a logging track, a rockface rising up to our left and a severe drop through the trees on our right. Suddenly, a roaring sound like the wind rushed upon us from behind. We turned and the dazzling headlights of a logging truck burst through the mist as it tore, full speed towards us. We flattened ourselves against the rockface just in time and it blazed on up the track and out of sight, unaware we were ever there.
Our isolation continued all day. Even the café we planned to stop at for lunch was closed and, when we detoured a kilometre off the trail to another one we came up against more bolted doors and shuttered windows. We sat, a little demoralised, on a small bench and ate the heart-shaped shortbread biscuits we had in our rucksack instead.
Going on through the mist we sang songs to distract us from the ache in our feet and in our stomachs and dreamed of the strudel and the cable car that awaited us at the top of the Belchen – our final mountain to climb. And, as it turned out, our steepest climb yet.
The path criss-crossed tightly all the way up. Fallen trees and huge root networks, as well as the swollen streams and waterfalls that had developed overnight, meant we had to scramble our way up using our hands now as well as our feet.
Eventually, the path stopped rising and, instead, curved round what seemed to be a plateau.
“Are we at the top?” My sister asked but I didn’t know. Visibility had been limited to no more than two metres all day and I couldn’t tell if we were even on the right mountain, let alone at the top. We moved along the trail, the white blankness of our surroundings unnerving now we couldn’t even discern the trunks of trees or hear any streams crossing our path or trickling beside us. We were two lone explorers and we didn’t even know what we were exploring. It started to press in on us that we hadn’t seen a single other human being all day. (Unless you count the one driving the truck that nearly ran us down but neither of us really saw them.)
Suddenly, out of the wet white air, loomed a huge man-made structure: a smooth curved metal zephyr-thing hanging still, and silent, in the space in front of us. It was like coming across an abandoned building on an alien planet. The cable cars. And they weren’t running. The restaurant we found behind them also had its lights out and door locked.
Still, at least we knew we had made it to the right place. We had reached our final summit.
Now, we just had no choice but to walk down the other side.
As we walked it began to rain hard. We were both tired now. It had been an adventure for sure but, when we finally reached a road at the bottom of the mountain, we stopped the first bus that came and got gratefully aboard without even knowing where it was going.
We sank into the bus seats and looked through steamy windows at the views we had been walking over all day on our path in the clouds. They were beautiful. Wide valleys of sweeping grass slopes, white-walled buildings with pointed red-tiled roofs, sandy brown cows with doleful eyes and bells around their necks.
The bus reached a train station and we stumbled on seizing legs onto the platform and the first train we saw. We meandered our way home on three more trains and, eventually, supermarket pizzas in hand, walked the last road to our base camp.
We had done it. We had pushed ourselves physically and emotionally further than we imagined we could go and it had worked. My feet hurt, my brain hurt, my back hurt and my stomach clawed at itself in hunger but, honestly, I couldn’t stop grinning. Even at the top of the Belchen facing disappointment and isolation and uncertainty I couldn’t help but feel elated.
If I could rise to this challenge as ill-equipped and inexperienced as I was, maybe I could do anything.