After the departure of tramp1, the tramp concluded that his new breakfast regime (porridge, bananas, eggs, perhaps the odd knaeckerbrot with nut butter and green tea) was definitely giving him more energy and therefore more adventurous hikes were the order of the day. Maps were pulled out after supper and studied so that the next morning the tramp and trampess could set out on new, long hikes, some of which could start from or wind up in different villages, as long as our trusty Bregenzerkarte would bring us home on one of the local (and very superior) buses.
If I have not said it before, climbing up is wonderful cardio exercise (and as you will remember is the basis for effortless weight loss), walking down is stressful for the knees and cartilage and therefore to be avoided at all cost, so the tramp wished to discover walks with a minimum climb of 1000m and a lift at the top for the return journey. The trampess began studying the local bus schedules to discover which of the tramp’s newly discovered routes were achievable with local transport (after all it is one thing to hike for 5 hours in the mountains and quite another to have to walk along a main road for 17km to return home!).
Before wandering too far afield, the tramp decided that there was another route to Baumgarten which had not been explored. It was a fine day and the two tramps set out early. The tramp’s pace had improved and we arrived at a decision point that would take us up to the top of Baumgarten or on a longer path through a high valley north of Baumgarten and towards Schoenenbach. A check of the bus schedule indicated a bus returning from Schoenenbach to Bezau at around 4:15 and another at 5:15. With a good supply of nuts and chocolate in our back packs and our camels fully loaded with water, we decided to head for Schoenenbach (besides it has such a promising name). The walk through the valley was stupendous: the valley was long and narrow and the view through the mountains was ever changing and truly beautiful. We walked up for some distance, though not in the relentless way that walking to a summit means, so it was thoroughly pleasant and not at all demanding. An hour or two later the path took a turn down and it was clear that it was going to be a steep down for sometime. The weather had by now turned and was chilly and windy. The tramp decided we needed to stop: to tighten his shoe laces (always required for a descent) and to stoke up on nuts and chocolate. It was going to be a long and gruesome walk. Quite how long and gruesome we had yet to realise. Not that I mind walking though herds of cows (I am quite used to that, even when the occasional bull lows at me in a slightly menacing manner), but this particular herd was in land that was particularly mucky so dodging cows at the same time as avoiding wet cow pats was not a perfect rural experience. Nonetheless, we progressed only to discover that the path led across the valley and was going up the other ridge that defined it. This was more like it, though the path was rough and very steep. After a long climb up we went into a forest and began to descend again. It was there that we came across a long stretch of what I can only call quickmud: you know, the alpine equivalent of quicksand. Now the tramp was in the lead (it must be noted that the tramp is very sure footed and has very long legs so that particularly steep descending bits are his forte even though he hates them). As the trampess was negotiating a particularly sticky patch, the tramp cried out “photo opportunity” and shot the trampess trying very hard, and almost unsuccessfully to pull her right boot out of the mud. It did occur to me, that I could remove my foot from the shoe and walk home unshod (or appeal to the tramp to dig out the boot and then put it back on), but happily, without expletives, but with extreme effort on the part of my right leg and both hands, the mud released the right foot. The tramp took a few more photos of your trampess beaming as she trod through mud. Photos are forever, the memory (and the mud) fades, the lesson is always to smile. Eventually, beginning to wonder if we were still on the path, we saw signs confirming that we were indeed still on the path to Schoenenbach.
Signs do not always indicate proximity - I remember seeing signs, with no mileage, on the motorway not far out of central London indicating we were on the way to Edinburgh; one would have thought one was only 50 miles away – this dear reader was one such sign. More muddy fields, more soggy cow pats and the weather now definitely wet – a gentle but persistent drizzle. Eventually we began to descend for real and in the distance we saw a few barns, a small church and a couple of houses. This was downtown Schoenenbach. In another half hour we were in the centre of town just a stone’s throw from the bus stop. THE bus stop for THE bus (we could actually see Schoenenbach’s only bus parked behind a barn waiting to make its Saturday trip to Bezau – it only makes two trips a day, and then, only on Saturday and Sunday). You have heard of one horse towns; well Schoenenbach is a one bus, two days a week town. The queue at the bus stop built up quite quickly behind us. Evidently many come here to walk; few stay. Happily having arrived 20 minutes early we nabbed seats under the awning of a barn at the stop, which also meant that we managed to get seats on the bus for the entire one hour journey back (which of course required a change in Bizau). The tramp decided that the walk from Schoenenbach to Baumgarten would be quite a pleasant one, but that we would never, ever, do it the other way round as we had today.
If coming back from Schoenenbach is a twice in a weekend event, getting to Schoenenbach is even more problematic. Attempting to follow the tramp’s decision, we set out one morning to catch the early Saturday morning bus (there is one in the morning and one at lunchtime; obviously there are none in the afternoon as that is when the bus returns from Schoenenbach). AS we prepared to jump on the bus, the driver informed us that he did not go that far – only to Bizau. The schedule was wrong: only the lunchtime bus operated. A quick look at the map determined our course: another assault on Baumgarten only this time via Sonderdach – a route we had not yet taken. If you find all these village names confusing, let me assure you that the tramp, whose mother tongue is, after all, the local language, continues to confuse them. He does not get confused on maps though and Sonderdach is definitely not Schoenenbach and proved a very beautiful way to reach the top.
Still, we were eager to find new routes that took us up but allowed us to ride down. The trampess (what good is it to be blonde if you can’t come up with simple but effective suggestions) suggested that looking at the Bregenzerkarte might reveal just such routes: it lists all the bergbahns one can use with the card. Lo and behold this investigation revealed a route to Baumgarten from Moos (near Andelsbuch) with two chair lifts from the top. Moos is, of course, another tiny village on the other side of Baumgarten from Bezau and from which has a large car park, including for caravans. This it transpires is the base from which most of the hang gliders we see hovering over Baumgarten start from and land. The chair lift is very active on the way up and very empty on the way down – most hang gliders occupy one side and their equipment (packed into a large rucksack) the other – and of course they go up in the chair and fly down (also not hard on the knees or ligaments but without the benefit of the cardio workout that your tramps get).
The day was glorious and the route simply splendid and quite, quite different from the paths leading from Bezau. The path skirted farms and meadows but was at the edge of a forest. We passed a farm where the farmer had finished mowing and was burning the odd bit of bracken (have I mentioned how beautiful the farms are? Since we are on the Kaesestrasse, you can assume that all farms are dairy farms. This means that there are cows and meadows. The meadows go to the edge of the forests: the cows are let loose on the steep pastures and the lower pastures are mown throughout the summer to make hay for the winter months when the cows are stabled. It makes for a very luscious countryside). The first smell that felt like fall. The path was steep and narrow but pleasant to walk on. It crossed under the chair lift so often the peace of the countryside was interrupted with shrieks of childish laughter from above. Some would even call “Halo” down to us – probably wondering what crazy people we were to be climbing up when a perfectly good (well, actually as we found out on the way down, serviceable is probably a more appropriate word – these lifts are possibly as old as I am) lift would take us to the top. After awhile the path pulled away from the course of the lift and silence returned. The views were magnificent but, of course, completely different since we were now on the Bodensee side of Baumgarten. One could have been climbing a completely different mountain. About halfway up we were overtaken (!) by an extremely fit man of a certain age (probably not quite as old as we, but certainly not in his thirties!) carrying his hang glider on his back. As I mentioned earlier, these are not small like rucksacks, even though they are in that form, so carrying one must be quite a load. Clearly he was the iron man of hang gliding. It reminded me of the old days (not, you understand that I ever did it) of skiing when skiers put their (much lighter) skis on their backs and climbed the mountain they were going to ski down. Clearly the iron man approached hang gliding in that fashion. One would definitely feel one had earned the right to fly after that!
By the end of three and a half hours (and 12:30 by the clock) we had reached the top of Baumgarten. It turns out that the lifts there have a rather longer mid day break than the lifts on the other side: from 11:45 until 1:15. We could hear the lift operator inside the station but breaks are breaks and the fact that demand was building up (several older and rather infirm walkers – one suspects from the other lift to this one – certainly not from Moos – arrived after we did) did not make the lift service commence any earlier, though the operator did come out to open the gate and offer seats on the benches adjacent his hut. We could have walked along the ridge and across to the other side and taken the usual bergbahn down but then our car would have to be retrieved from Moos – a rather long walk from Bezau! So with the usual nuts and chocolate to keep hunger from the door, we waited until 1:15. I always liked chair lifts better than T-bars when skiing but I have to say that running off a chairlift while carrying a back pack can be challenging (at least for the trampess – the tramp, needless to say, is a champion at this sort of thing), so even though I had explicit directions to run to the right while the tramp would run to the left and then come to get me, I must confess that the chair did bump my delicate bottom as I ran off. Even with the help of the lift operator who tried to slow it down. Oh well sometimes blondes really are blondes. But at least we have proved, that while all roads lead to Rome, many in the greater Bezau area lead to Baumgarten, which has the great advantage of being good to the ligaments, even if occasionally bad for the bottom!
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