Black Forest - Day 3 : Feldberg

In the morning it was pretty cold again, it seemed to get colder every day. Before we left we made some more soup, this time beef-chicken-chocolate-pine needle flavored. It gave me a sore stomach. Wearing our hats and gloves we continued and reached a little bridge.

A bridge on the Feldberg
 

The path we were following wasn't easy, as it was narrow and covered with ice. I slipped a few times but didn't fall. The higher we got the deeper the snow became. Fortunately the hikers before us had compacked it. Despite the sub-zero temperatures Bart felt so warm he was walking in his t-shirt. If he would get pneumonia he at least knew why. We again lost our directions. After some searching we ended up on the correct trail again and passed a shelter and a little stream.

A shelter covered in a deep layer of snow
 

We passed another snow field, which was covered in animal tracks. The type of snow there differed from that on the Schauinsland. On the Schauinsland it consisted of spherical ice particulates, here it formed a layer of ice crystals which made a loud sound when we stepped on it. Those were just two of the many types of snow we encountered and we wondered if there were people studying snowology.

 

It was extremely quiet on the plain. We stood there fore a few minutes to listen. We heard nothing except the wind and the blood running in our ears. We hadn't seen anyone the entire day. Bram took his camera to take a picture. Right then we heard "roetsssssssssssssjjjjjjjjjjjj" and saw a skier entering the field. He stopped right in the middle and stood there for over 10 minutes. When he left we could finally take a photo.

Bart

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The next section was the toughest of the whole trip. The path we were following to the Feldberg went steep uphill through 50 cm deep snow. It took more than an hour before we made it to the top.

We walked towards some tower with the Alps in the background before descending again
 

From the summit we walked towards the white tower in the pictures above. There was a ski slope nearby which we  tried to slide down, but that didn't work because of the deep snow... except for Bart, but that wasn't voluntarily. In the valley we found a foodstand. After eating our first warm meal in three days we explored the area, but there were only hotels. We continued along a small path along the Feldsee, a small lake. To get there we needed to descent even further and there was so much ice we had a hard time staying upright. The frozen lake looked nice.

Feldsee 2
 

After the Feldsee we continued plowing through the snow for another half an hour. Eventually we reached a cross-country skiing path. We heard something that sounded like a strange bird, which turned out to be the poles of two skiers. It would be dark in 30 minutes, but it didn't look like the skiiers knew that.

It was getting dark
 

Everything was covered by snow, so we needed to sleep on top of the snow once more. We walked off into the forest and trampled a section large enough to pitch our bivy bags. It was cold enough to keep our Jagermeister at a good temperature.

Quickly putting on some warm clothes
 

It snowed a bit during the night. Each night we spent about 14 hours in our tent, but only slept a few of them. The remainder was spent by lying awake and trying to stay warm.