AA Day 15

The day started with a 1.5km uphill walk to the start of the stage.  We made good progress on forest tracks before crossing some moorland.  There were big cliffs to our right and we knew that we would eventually be on top of them.  The trail led steeply upwards through an area of woodland, finally finishing at a lake, where we stopped for a rest.  The next section led through a massive boulder field, which we crossed by stepping from boulder to boulder, continually watching out for the trail markers ahead.  This was slow progress, with our speed down to less than 2kph.  Low cloud was blowing over us all this time, with glimpses of sunshine.  We then walked on one of those narrow paths with nothing to stop you if you should put a foot wrong.  This included some sections where the step up or down the path was a metre high, requiring even more care.  The path took us to the top of the cliffs and we were now in an area of rolling moorland.  We reached the summit of the first hill, then followed the cairns up to the second peak.  The mist was still rolling about, giving impressive views.  The path finally dropped down the side of the mountain in a long series of zig-zags, before climbing up to the next peak.  The path led round the peak rather than going to the top, and if I thought the last path was exposed, this was a lot worse; a steep slope below you for maybe 50m, and then you couldn’t see any more of the slope before it disappeared into the valley far below.  We were now only about halfway through the walk and had another steep descent, before yet another climb.  We stopped at the top of it and could see our entire route up to that point.  We had walked NW, NE, E, and S, and were now not very far from where we had started the day, but considerably higher.  The path finally dropped through the woods to the end of the stage.  (We missed one sign and ended up on the wrong track.  Luckily it was far before we realised our mistake.)  We then had another 100m of climbing to get to the hutte, where we were warmly welcomed by the owner.  In comparison to last night, this had been entirely renovated, with a lovely warm shower room.