Solsteinhaus to Nördlinger Hut

Today's was the longest walk of the trip, in fact, it was my longest in years in terms of the number of hours. We walked for nine hours (including breaks) but only covered ten kilometres. That was due to a combination of walking over two mountains (888 metres up and 470 metres down) and a lot of steep scree.
After leaving the hut, we rounded a corner, and there was the first mountain in front of us – the Erlspitze. We could see it plainly enough, but we could not work out where the path went. Surely not straight up that apparently vertical slope of loose rocks facing us? After a short walk and clambering over a stream, we reached the bottom of the slope, and indeed, that scree slope was where we were heading. The scree was gravel, and it was steep enough so that for each tread uphill, you also slipped back a little bit. That was quite tiring and also meant that it was only possible to walk at your own pace, so Suzanne and I separated a bit. There were also very few plants managing to grow on the dry, unstable slopes, so not so much to slow me down.
Eventually we got to the top. Looking back, we could see last night's hut in the distance. There was a small patch of snow, much whiter than the somewhat grubby patches we had seen up to now. And looking forwards, there was a whole new valley, with a dazzling view into the distance, made all the more dramatic by dark thunderclouds overhead. The hut had printed out weather forecasts and put them on the breakfast table, and they said that there would be rain in northern Tyrol. However, we were lucky, the clouds were raining in the distance, but we stayed dry.
Having got to the top on one side of the mountain, we then descended down the other side, towards the valley. That was not easier than going up. The loose scree meant that we had to continually pay attention to where we stepped and be ready to use our sticks for stability. On this side, more or less with a north-facing aspect, there were lots of plants to look at. I saw Soldanella alpina, which has two delightful English names, alpine snowbell and blue moonwort. It is in the Primula family, I had read about it in the flora before setting off and was very happy to actually see it in the flesh. There were also lots of Primula auricula growing on the scree as well as Ranunculus montanus and R. alpestrus.
We were expecting to go down the valley in front of us, but when we got to the bottom of the scree, our path forked off to the left, and we headed along the side of the mountain, following the contour line. That was easy going, which made a pleasant change. There were yet more new plants to see, like Bartsia alpina (subject of a failed PhD by a friend of mine back in Manchester – it grew too slowly to be able to measure), Valeriana alpina (looking just like garden valerian) and Myosotis alpestris (looking just like a normal forget-me-not).
As we walked along, we saw a single chamois grazing off to our right and then we looked the other way and saw a small herd of them a couple of hundred metres away, looking back at us. We thought that we might be disturbing them, so quickly moved on.
Shortly after that, we came across a large snowfield lying across the path. It wasn't on a slope, so slipping wouldn't mean falling off the mountain, but the snow wasn't so deep anymore, and it was covering some rather pointy-looking rocks. Nevertheless, it was quite soft, so it wasn't too slippery and not too much of a problem to walk across it.
At the end of the flat section, there was a short steep uphill over the Breiter Saddle, which was a pass or shoulder between two valleys, where a number of footpaths came together. That meant that we had views in multiple directions. There were a couple of young people with a drone there. The drone was flying around, taking aerial videos of the surroundings. The videos were not going to be online, so we could not see them, unfortunately.
We then got to our second big climb of the day. It was just as steep, but this time instead of gravel and screen, there was a solid path, with vegetation cementing the hillside in place. That made it in principle much easier, but by then we had been walking for several hours, so it was still hard work. About half way up, the path was diverted due to a small snowfield. By the look of it, the old route was still passable, but if everyone went that way, it would have caused quite some erosion. That snow was a bit harder, so it was only possible to walk up it by stamping hard into it for grip, using our sticks and keeping going as fast as we could manage. We both did manage it, but it wasn't easy.
Above the snowfield, we saw a few black birds circling around. They looked like crows, but had a very melodic call, quite unlike any crow I had ever heard. At first I even thought that the calls must be from a different bird than the one I was looking at. However, Merlin confirmed that it was indeed the call of a sort of crow, a Red-billed chough (Alpenkraai). They were playing with the wind currents swirling around the peak, with incredible acrobatic dexterity.
We got to the top of the hill at about four 'o'clock, still accompanied by the choughs, and began to wonder if we might even be late for dinner. When we left, the signpost had said five hours, it looked like we were taking about twice as long. On the other hand, we should have done most of the uphill now. We were at about 2000 meters above sea level, and our final destination was at 2230 m.
It was very windy at the top, so we didn't hang around. The path swung off to the west and just below the top of the ridge. At the top there were lots of Primulas, both farinosa and auricula, and then as we moved along the south-facing slope, the vegetation opened up to scree again. Apparently, counterintuitively, south-facing slopes can be more harsh in the mountains as the sun melts the snow and the underlying plants are unprotected. We began to see a few little saxifrages, including a rather pretty Saxifraga caesia with gunmetal-coloured leaves and Saxifraga oppositifolia with pretty purple flowers. When we were students, we once walked for hours on a field trip in Wales, to Cader Idris, to see that plant growing at one of its only UK sites. Later that day we witnessed a remarkable phenomenon; the cloud was in front and below us and the sun behind. The sunlight cast a shadow our our heads on the cloud and each person saw a rainbow around their shadow. I have never seen that since, apparently, it is very rare.
For a while the path was quite easy, and then just as we were getting close to our destination, there were some technical bits with scrambling over rocks and snow with the help of steel cables. We had to be very focused, as by now we were getting tired, and it would not do to make a mistake.
Finally, we arrived at the hut at about five with time for a cup of tea before the evening meal.Read more