We slept in (actually we got up earlier than usual for us) until 7:45 so we could have breakfast with Axel and Heike. Their first bus isn’t until 10:45 this morning so the only time pressure was to get out of the hotel by 10.
When I went to pay the bill, I asked about the sandwiches for lunch. The guy working the register ( actually the owner) said no sandwiches. I tried to say when we checked in, she said she would take care of us. His response was “go talk to Madame.” When I tracked her down, she said no sandwiches. I reminded her we asked when we checked in and she said she’d take care of us. She said she didn’t understand what we were asking, but no food for lunch and no chance for food anywhere else in town. I got a little snippy and said we wouldn’t have stayed if we knew we couldn’t get food for today ( a lie, we were staying once we saw Axel and Heike). She said wait 10 minutes.
When she came back she tossed two plastic bags at us. She was clearly miffed. The short story for the rest of this is that those were the best sandwiches we have had on the trip so far–the spit on them really moistened the bread.
At 10, we walked with Axel and Heike to the bus stop (on our way back to the trail). We said goodbye to them for the third time this trip, but we’re pretty sure this one was for real. About 20 minutes later when we were walking on the road, we saw the bus they were waiting for heading to town. We are going to miss them immensely.
Leaving town, we could see patches of blue sky and even a little sun. We were hoping for a few clouds to keep the temperature down since we had about 4500′ of climbing. The clouds more than compensated. Once we had climbed about another 300′, we were back in a fog and would be all day (and night from the look of things).
Axel and Heike will pick back up here the next time they have 2 weeks free. Axel will be sorry to know that there’s another section of trail just like Chemin de la Mature. It’s just not as long and there’s a cable to hold on to the entire way when you’re walking on the edge of a 700′ vertical fall.
With it being a foggy day, we really didn’t have any great views. We did have a lot of climbing and some nice water falls. Since our visibility was so poor, we really saw very few people out hiking. We passed one man we camped next to a couple nights ago, but he ended up stopping about a mile before we did and 600′ lower.
We knocked out most of the climb (all but the last 1800′) in the hopes that the clouds will lift for us in the morning. It would be a shame to not be able to see anything the first time we climbed to over 7500′.
When we crossed a nice flowing stream, we decided to set up camp on the first level spot we could find. As luck would have it, we are only about 30′ from the water. I’ve already had to pee 4 times from the sound and it’s not even 8 o’clock yet. We set up the tent above a wall, but the mist is blowing up the mountain and under our vestibule. It could be a long, cold night. The last words Axel said to us were “Thunderstorms after midnight, but that was German weather service.” Let’s hope they’re no better at predicting the weather than we are in the US.
Number 5 and then I’m going to sleep.