Return of the Adventure Blog-- Kreuzeck Climb

Hello all,

I do sincerely apologize for the lack of adventure posts for the past several months. To put it lightly, the past semester was CRAZY. I hope to bring many more posts to you in the coming months. To kick things off I would like to share the story of my final Deutsch adventure.

Kreuzeck Climb 1651 m. (5400 ft.)
Time: 6 hr
Estimated time: 2 hr 45 min (hahaha)

We started this morning after I went to WN Alpin to rent snowshoes and poles. The night before we did the gear checks and re-checks. But after we went out to pick up the snowshoes I came in and swapped out for a warmer layer and added one. It was a clear day, but man was it COLD. When we got all loaded up and were about to start it was 6 degrees Fahrenheit which is -14 Celsius. It didn't warm up very much throughout the day, but is amazing what good gear will do for you.

We started walking and saw the signs, Kreuzeck- 2.5 hrs. We were feeling good, then we saw the arrow on the sign was pointing up a hill that did not look like a trail. Time to strap the snowshoes on. AJ, our awesome guide Martha, Victoria (AJ's girlfriend not the baby), and myself were excited and ready to get moving and get warm.

All smiles as we put on the snowshoes.

We had about 1000 meters to climb, over about 18 km of trail. The first 500 meters were fairly relaxed. It took us about 2 hours and it emerged onto an idyllic field with perfect untouched snow and rolling hills. You could see the mountains all around and the very faint hum of the Alpsptizebahn in the distance. Our canine companion Penelope was happy as can be running around in the snow field. Aj was drooling at the potential for building jumps to snowboard off. I was just trying to soak it all, as it started to hit me this is my last trip to Germany in the foreseeable future.

Not bad, right?

My favorite views by far are the ones you really have to work for. We never would have experienced this beauty unless we walked up that path that didn't look like a path at all. However, the easy part was over. We still had 500 meters left to go up and it would take us 4 hours. Things started to get steeper, my goal was to hang tough with Martha.

Martha, I should mention, is a superhero. She has climbed Kilamanjaro, she was on the varsity swim team at the Air Force Academy. She competed in triathlons for the Air Force, not to mention the fact that she was a fighter pilot in a few wars. She led us on the Kramer climb, and she was strolling today. But I was still proud of the fact that I kept her in my sights.

I looked at these for a long time thinking about what is in my data bank.

I took a layer off and we continued going up. I never got any muscle soreness, but man was my heart pounding and my lungs were burning. In tricky parts, the snowshoes would slide and you would fall into 3 feet of snow. In one particular tough spot, once we all were caught up Martha talked to us about the experience of climbing mountains. She told us about an 11-year-old track star who joined her group up Kilamanjaro. She said that he was an extremely good athlete, but he didn't have any experience in his data bank to count on when things got tough. He hadn't been through a more difficult experience to lean back on when he thought he couldn't take another step. That 11-year-old made a huge deposit into his data bank that day. Today, Victoria, Aj and I made a deposit into our personal data banks. We will be able to call on the frustration we all felt at stepping into snow that would immediately slide out from under your feet and put you back further than you started. We will be able to remember how teams works, and how it is important to work together.

Walk-sweat, wait- get cold. This was the pattern as we kept going up. Until about the last 50-75 meters we had to climb that were TOUGH. I slipped and fell every 3 or 4 meters. I spent about 5 minutes trying to dig myself out of hole that just got bigger whenever I tried to take a step. I just could not get out. At the same time Victoria had dropped her water bottle and was about to fall down a cliff trying to reach it. Aj, the image of neutrality, stood there not knowing what to do. We were so close to the top, Martha was standing there waiting for all of us, laughing only a little as I fell over and over again. Finally, I reached the top and had that instant feeling of success. I woo-hooed and cheered AJ and Victoria on as they finished up. We walked across and got on the bahn, victorious. We had a delicious victory meal at the bottom.

Overall it was a great final adventure in Germany. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to do and see all these amazing things. They have contributed significantly to my data bank and I can't wait to add more.

The last, and hardest, switchbacks.

Our ticket down!

Quote of the day: "The quickest way down is to keep going up." - Martha