The RV Week with Phil Kates and Friends (May 15 - 21, 2004)

Thursday, May 20 - Day Six: The hike from heaven to hell and back

Phil had done the last of the night's driving and we were in snowcaps not far from Salzburg by 5:30 a.m. when we stopped to rest the van and ourselves. I actually had the most sleep coming out of Vienna through the night, so I took over the wheel at 7:15 a.m. We were destined for Innsbruck and some serious Alps.

Paul had actually chosen the area to spend the last full day of the RV, and we found a lovely campsite with spectacular views of snow-capped peaks from our site. We were ensconced in Innsbruck by 10 a.m. and slept more, relaxed, and brunched on Paul's exquisite cooking - mushroom ravioli in delicate cooking oils and chives, with salad, sandwiches, even cereal - a real feast of a brunch. By 2 p.m. we were determined to embark on an alpine hiking experience. I was determined to sit in a high alpine meadow and play guitar, sing, and eat bread and cheese... i.e. a real Sound of Music experience ...

We headed into the village of Innsbruck where there were buses up to village mountain plateaus with good places to start a mountain hike.

Now we had a few problems. Though our food and water supplies were quite adequate, our foot wear, clothing, and emergency hiking paraphernalia were much less so. We set out anyway, with a fairly unclear map - a problem later.

Our goal was simply to get up to a mountain meadow, have a nice picnic dinner, and make it down before the 9 p.m. sunset.

The Innsbruck Alps are crisscrossed with cleared skiing trails, dirt roads to get to mountain cabins, and upper pasture areas (Almen as they are called in German). Our first paths were mildly steep, but to get up to those high country meadows I knew we would really have to haul up some trails and severe slopes. Phil and Paul were the reluctant climbers at first ... but I shamed them into getting there butts in gear. Phil was hampered by his very inadequate footwear - moccasins.

Hikers and mountain bikers were everywhere, so all seemed safe and collegial on the slopes.
Our starting height was probably around 500-600 meters. After a time we set our sights on the map for a place called Hottinger Alm. Sounded and looked above 1500 meters on the map - and we struggled on (the day was actually hot).

When we finally hit a clearing with some serious views of the peaks on the other side of the valley, Phil and Paul were ready pack it in and head down after a brief lunch - but I said no, no, let's get up to one of those high meadows way up there beyond those last houses. Paul said, "O.k., wiseguy, time to carry the big back-pack with the food!" Fine - if it kept them going I would be happy to carry it! Plus I wanted to prove Paul wrong, who said we would never reach the snowline.

After about an hour of steep hiking, and a brief stop at a low snowfield not yet melted, where I pelted Paul with a few snow balls, we made it to the Hottinger Alm where there was actually an inn with food available - so much for the nature experience, or so I was to think. As Paul and Phil ordered some drinks from the Alm inn, I climbed another 50 meters up to a beautiful meadow, with sheep and their neck bells tinkling 30 yards away. The view was a 360 of Alps - both across the valley, and behind us surrounding our backs. The meadow itself was covered with brilliant yellow flowers. (The deep purple-blue ones we had seen at lower altitudes had already shut their blossoms to the chilly high-mountain air.) And the air smelled so fresh, so pure.

Another perfect moment. Guitar on back, I pulled it out of its case and sang and plucked away.

After our drinks and late afternoon/early evening picnic it was time to head down ...

Now the way home, it was decided, might look interesting if we actually took dirt roads outlined on the map. They seemed to lead home to the campground, and we thought it would be good to avoid the bus and the waiting. The delightful Fräulein at the inn advised us to hit a lower mountain road and just stay to the right as you hit various dirt roads...hmmm, sounded easy.

We traveled down a steep "V" path between two ridges where we finally bottomed out to the proposed lower dirt road. But at the bottom of this "V" was an extensive snowfield with a freshly melted stream gushing underneath - straight from the high peaks above. That water was frigid, so clear and mountain blue. Paul and I poked our heads into the hole of the snowfield where the water was rushing out. The stream had chunks of rock and earth where we could avoid the ice-cold water. We felt the rush of cold air come from that snowfield tunnel - amazing.

While we were enthralled with the sight, Phil was fixated on another phenomenon - a small but deep pool of water that had collected in a depression in the ground next to the stream. It was clear, deep, and barely liquid, it was so cold. Phil who we discovered must have some polar bear in him, all of a sudden stripped down to his skivvies, and without another thought leapt head first into the icy pool - the man is certifiably nuts. As he burst forth from his complete submergence, he shrieked, "That felt great!" And shaking himself like a husky, grinning from ear to ear, with icy water seemingly forming icicles in his beard, he dried himself and pulled on his clothes.

He tried to talk us into a dip, but we wisely declined. It was getting to be dusk ... as Phil completed his drying and changing out of his frozen underwear, we headed down the dirt roads, keeping to the right whenever we hit a fork. The map seemed to corroborate the Fräulein's direction, so we continued on, serenading the evening air with guitar tunes and stories.

The problem was that the dusk was getting deeper into darkness, and the roads we were taking were getting narrower and more remote. We were keeping the town's evening twinkling lights on our left so we figured we could keep following the road.

But the road became a path that got narrower and narrower, into thick brush and finally into deep forest ... I started reciting Robert Frost's "The Woods were lovely, dark, and deep" ... it was becoming quite dark by this time, but there seemed to be a descending path in front of us. Then Paul realized our first big mistake - the flashlight he had packed for a hike, was unfortunately still in the RV and not in his backpack.

Oh boy ...

In the deepening dark, we inched our way on the narrowing path to where suddenly there was a big opening - a 150-foot straight cliff drop to a railroad trestle with a mountain tunnel not far from the tracks. We thought about trying to climb down to the train tracks and hike out that way, but the cliff was a straight vertical, and even fearless Phil who tried to find a path or a descending way to the train tracks, was stymied in his moccasin-clad efforts. Time to turn around and try to retrace our steps in the dark.

And that, after 10 or 15 minutes, became impossible. As we entered back into the deep forest we began to slowly discover how completely lost we were. "But I have promises to keep ..." The ability to see much more than a few feet in front of our faces became impossible. For the next two hours we bushwhacked through brush, ran into trees, even crawled on all fours at times trying to feel a path. After all the paths we had seen earlier in the day, this seemed insane - but we were not able to find anything. "... And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep …"

We stopped for a Phil-requested rest. As we began to hear critters in the forest floor, we decided to try some strategies. We would create compass points with the middle man, and the outer men would circle out to within audible distance and see what they would find. We did this for another half hour or so, about at our wits' end. As I just was beginning to hum an old hymn tune, "Shepherd show me how to go, o're the hillside steep," Paul suddenly careened down a steep embankment of brush and dead leaves, falling and rolling into a man-made shed. PROGRESS. As we followed his voice, careful not to follow his fall, Phil found himself on top of a house roof coming out of the ground. We could barely see from the roof a small wooden deck below ... we eventually felt our way to that deck ... and uttered some gratitude for progress. Where there is a cabin, there must be a way out.

The cabin was padlocked up. So after finding a ceramic pot on the deck, we put some scrap papers from our packs into the pot - we had about three matches between the three of us. The paper must have been damp and the breezes too strong - no fire to help our vision.

We continued feeling around the crude fencing of the dwelling for an opening to a path, when I came upon brief stairs to a lower patio. Inching further along the fencing of this lower area, I felt an opening in the fence and decided to try for a path.

As I stepped out, my feet gave way to pure air and I found myself free-falling down the side of the mountain for about 15 feet scratching and clawing for a hold, while shouting, "I'm going, I'm going ..." (We would later laugh about this.) Fortunately my right foot dug into the earth in the mountainside and I howled for help as my left foot dangled in the air, struggling to keep a hold. Perhaps there was flatter ground below, but I did not want to find out how far down! As I clung to roots, my right toehold kept slipping down in the loose soil. Phil, bless him, found a broken branch that was quite strong. It was about 12 feet long ... I reached up for it, grabbed onto it, and he literally hauled me up. Maybe he does have some bear in him, I thought!

After taking a lot of deep breaths, Phil was quite strong in his opinion that we could do nothing 'til the morning light. His option was to sleep out on the deck where we could at least feel safe. Paul said there was one more direction he would like to take to see if he could find a path. He headed out actually going up away from us. Our rule was you had to stay in voice contact on any forays, being able to find your way back to the group by voice. At the very edge of not hearing Paul anymore we heard a distant "ah-hah," but then he called out, "hey I can't find my way back!" But Phil had a bit more power on his cell phone, and the light from the dialing pad actually was visible to Paul, and he made his way back to us with news of a clearing with at least some visibility, and actual lights from the city below to help a bit. We decided that with our tight schedule to get the plane in Frankfurt, we needed to try now to get back to the RV.

We stumbled onto the opening, which was not a ski slope as we had hoped, but just deep tree and brush debris from some snow avalanche. The brush was knee and hip deep, and our legs were covered with bruises and gashes. Finally we reached a ridge on the other side of the clearing. Paul inched his way down until he went out of sight. Then we heard distant falling through brush with another hearty but more convincing "ah-hah." "I found a logging road … come on down!"
We scrambled down as fast as we could, excited that the ordeal was coming to a close. Just then Phil's phone rang with a text message from his wife. "I hope you are well and safe," Pam's note read. That we were. In another half hour we were walking the streets of Innsbruck where we caught the 1 a.m. bus back to the RV camp ... Whew ...

We all showered grateful hot showers - we were one smelly, messy, stinking group of guys by this point.

I cooked up the remaining pasta, and a frozen package of seafood paella. That food tasted smooth going down ... we packed up and pulled out of Innsbruck by 3 a.m.

Don Liuzzi, Principal Timpani