Day 41: mind games

On a day like today, hiking becomes a mind game - long distance ahead, fairly similar landscape all day, tired legs from days of walking, icy winds and heavy rain forecasted. Your body is totally fine, wrapped up and full of unused energy, but your mind tells you it will be hard, you will be cold, you won't make it. We did a few things to win this mind game: be prepared for any kind of weather, stay positive and motivate each other, play mind puzzles and guessing games together, and listen to good music for a while.

And so we did the hike in very good time, good spirits, and made it across 5km of snow as well as two river crossings without a bridge. One of the river crossings was quite an adventure; we had to take off our shoes and pants and cross melting water which came up almost to our hips. The water was 2 to 4 degrees. We felt quite proud when we had crossed ;-)

We were completely exhausted and happy when we arrived and treated ourselves to a big dinner at the self-serve mountain hut - we're not tenting in snow today :)Read more