Thursday, June 22, 2023
Lechweg Day 3 – Gehren – Holzgau
Step Count: 34,776 Anika, 33,828 Nathan
Just to be clear, I did not book this fancy room. I booked a comfort double, not this palace. I think we are in the only room with a balcony. However, I will not complain, and its absolutely gorgeous, complete with wool rug and sofa, toilet room, shower room, writing table, and doors with concealed hinges! Who do they think we are? I’m sure they never intended for us to wash our underthings in their fancy sink!
I actually have other things to complain about, namely Fedex and our ATM cards are not here. I called yesterday and they were on time for today, so I’m a little disappointed but not at all surprised. So, we are in a regroup mode. If its delivered tomorrow, one or both of us will need to bus back here to pick them up. I don’t know who’s name is on the package, and I don’t know if the hotel will give the package to Nathan let’s say if its in my name, as most important things are. 😉 If its not delivered tomorrow…
Let’s forget all that nastiness for now. We had the most wonderful day. It all started last night. Our hotel was 15-20 minutes walk from Warth, and yesterday was a pretty long, intense day, so we didn’t really want to walk back into town. Our hotelier, Ulrich said he could make us a cold plate, and since he had both wine and bier on hand, we said yes to his offer. It was charcuterie on a grand scale and we had a wonderful time chatting with Liz, another guest, who is from Australia.
When Ulrich found out Nathan was an architect, he mentioned the chalet next door, which was 550 years old and the family had recently refurbished. Ulrich gave us and Liz a tour of the chalet. A luxury ski chalet is just waiting in Gehren for you and your next family gathering.
Today, we had hope of setting off early, because stage 3 is 10.5 miles, plus the little bit of stage 2 from Gehren to Lechleiten, but Pat and Andrew weren’t quite ready until 9. At 8:40 I started slowly walking up the path, with Nathan in tow, until we got to a tricky, unmarked turn, and Nathan went back to guide Pat and Andrew through it. I continued, at a rather slow pace, but still walking forward. By 10 am, Nathan had caught up back up to me, and we walked for the rest of the day just the two of us.
The morning was a decent climb, slow and steady, high above the valley and river, and then we got to a point where we were descending down a gravel road, down, down, down until we met back up with the Lech River.
Once we finally reached the river it was 11:30, and we decided to stop at a bench to have our mid-morning snack. Ulrich had made us hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, which we were too full for, so we ate them, some of our chocolate bar, a salami stick, and a mini pack of Haribo Gold bears that we got from Pension Widderstein. We took photos of the river and moseyed on our way.
We actually made really good time today and had a lot of time for fun. Next stop is Steeg, and our hotel is just an hour and a half from there. On the way into Steeg, we came upon a Joghurt and Kase tankstelle (yogurt and cheese gas station). It was tiny, about the size of a forest service vault toilet building in Colorado, and by the honor system sold yogurt, cheese, salamis, radlers, bier, and nonalcoholic cold drinks. No wine, so I had an apple juice spritzer, and Nathan bought a radler. Of course, the Austrians, they give you a bier, and then you must walk up a hill, and today was no different, so we climbed with our drinks and made our way into Steeg.
In Steeg, we stopped at a real gas station to have our sandwiches at a picnic bench. The gas station had no pumps that we could see, but advertised diesel by the liter, so it was there somewhere. It was also closed, what being the noon hour and all! We discovered it was closed after Nathan decided to get a takeaway coffee, and I was going to use their WC. No worries though, the next building over was a cafe and meat shop, complete with take away coffee and ice cream counter! I taught Nathan how to say Sprechen Sie English, bitte, and he tried it out there for the first time. We will need to work on the pronunciation, but they understood and he got his takeaway latte and I got the most delicious ice cream cone.
Snacks in hand, we continued through Steeg, and found a public water fountain and free WC. Nathan dumped his warm water from his Camelbak and refilled with fresh, cold water from the fountain and I used the lav. Clean with running water and soap!
As we left Steeg, we walked closer and closer to an enormous waterfall, and then we stumbled upon a foot soak station. We happily took off our boots and packs and got into the freezing water. No… Like painfully cold water. Nathan was slow to acclimatize but did stick it out to reduce the heat rash and swelling.
Once we had our soak, we dried off our feet, got back on the trail, for the hour walk into Holzgau.