Going Up the Fichtelberg

So our great plan, immediately derailed. The Schwebebahn, aka the Fichtelberg cable car, had been reserved until two for a wedding. Well, there went our plans for a leisurely ascent in Germany's oldest cable car (built 1924). A few facts about the cable car: as I mentioned, it's Germany's oldest, built in 1924, with a hiatus from 1948-1956. It goes from the station in Oberwiesenthal at an elevation of 905 meters (2969 feet and change) to the peak of Fichtelberg at 1175 meters (3855 feet).

The Fichtelberg is the highest peak in Saxony, the second highest in the Ore Mountains. Not a match for the peak we rode up to in the Alps, but high enough for our purposes on this trip. A change of plans was necessary, I didn't ride that old timey train all the way here not to get to the top of that mountain. So we decided we'd walk it. We had planned to hike down from the top, so knew there were open winter routes.

It's a nice little ski resort, not yet in season. There were a lot of families with little kids and sleds (big wooden sleds on runners, not the plastic things we use here in the US), a couple snow boarders who were obviously just learning, and some cross country skiers, as the cross country slopes were the only ones open. We didn't let any of this dissuade us, nor the cold temperature or late hour of starting, and set off up the mountain.

We had never hiked in snow before, and thankfully it wasn't a lot of snow and people had been there ahead of us. Still, it made it a bit more work than a regular trail. The elevation gain wasn't bad, nothing too steep, but it caught up with me after a while. We had one break to eat chocolate and peanuts, drink some water. Then another when I had to take off my boot and sock and bandage up a blister.

There were a few huts enroute, and I was excited about that until we found the first one (long before the chocolate and blister breaks). I was expecting a Bavarian-style hut with a beer garden and et cetera. No. This was literally a hut, a little shelter. Maybe had some drinking water, we didn't look. Just as well. A delay like that would have hurt my morale later.

By the time we got to the top, the novelty of this whole hiking in a winter wonderland had worn off. Big time. I was done: hungry, my blister-foot hurt, my formerly broken ankle was achy, and I was really salty at those wedding people for renting out the entire cable car for four hours when I wanted to use it.Lue lisää