4 Day

One of the hidden gems of being stationed in Germany is that once a month we get a 4 day weekend. This gives an opportunity to relax a bit, travel some, and generally take a quick breath before going back to the deep end. In our case, we used this weekend to ride bikes, climb an Alp, brew beer, make cookies, fix furniture, clean the house, chase cats, and generally do a bit of everything.
Yesterday Jak and I hiked up the Hoher Fricken, mainly because the name is fun to say and half way up there is a cave called the Frickenhollen. It was a fricken good time and absolutely beautiful, if a shade too vertical for our joint's tastes. The trail starts out on a kid's path, with questions here and there about trees and the like. It was a nice easy way to start, but it got even better. The first kilometer of the trail is through a gorge with waterfall after beautiful waterfall. Fricken awesome! From there, the trail does the very normal thing that trails do in the Alps, namely went straight up. Via a series of switch backs in short order we were high above the valley floor with views one way to the Zugspitze which was getting the first snows for the season and the other way out on the plains leading towards Munchen. It was stunning, and the weather was perfect. For the first time this year we were able to hike in pants, which was a welcome change from our normal au-natural adventures. Just kidding, we normally hike in shorts, but there is something very nice and reminiscent of home about hiking in pants. We both were trying out some new gear, which was very successful. After much searching we had gotten Jak some mountianeering boots which she tried out with great success, and we both wore our new packs which did not destroy our bodies like the one's we climbed the Zugspitze with.
The only catch with the hike was that we were literally hiking between storm fronts, with the rain of the previous 3 days about to give way to another several days of rain, so we had to hike quickly to make sure we had time if the weather socked in. We managed to get most of the way up before the clouds started to roll in and as rain started to darken the horizon we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and headed back down. Many amusing slips and two pairs of burning quadriceps later, we made it back to the car with plenty of time to gas up, eat some Subway and head back home. I love living only 3 hours from the Alps, though we are definatley jealous of those stationed in Garmisch where we were hiking, that must be the best posting in Europe. The only disappointment of the day was that the Frickenhollen proved impossible to find.