Of course when you go up a mountain, you eventually have to come back down. That little motivational poster quote popped into my head as we woke up the next morning, which would have been corny if it wasn't so true and if our bodies weren't so sore. We were laughably the last people to check into our communal room that night and the first people to get into bed. We kept that momentum going by being the last people to get out of bed, and the first to check out of the lodge. It was part eagerness to get going for the sake of finishing the climb and part sensing that we had to jumpstart ourselves to get our limbs moving. Either way, we paid for our beds and last nights dinner (a respectable total of €60), ate our ration of granola bars, laced up our boots and started off on trail 214.
That first hill was arguably the hardest of the day, as our aching muscles really needed the warm up after our long sleep. But 214 was easier on us than the upward 213 the previous day, and we were rewarded with a neater trail and even rock steps. Once we got over the peak of this trail, we were excited to see the forest we had walked in the day before clearly spread before us. Today would come with less surprises it seemed and we had a clear view of our trail and destination. Funny enough, the day before we were completely alone on the trail (and seemingly the whole mountain) but while climbing down 214 we crossed paths with about four groups all heading up to stay at the lodge we just left. Clearly this trail was favored over the other.
Again we were faced with a little bit of excitement and we handled the resulting ladders and cable walks with ease. It's a little more nerve-racking going down these than up, but at least if we fell down we'd be going the right way! These little spots were a nice break from the walking downhill though, as after awhile our knees and joints started to ache from the tension. While we ended up taking a few breaks to peer over the mountains edge and rest our legs, we made it down the hill in the estimated time of 3 hours. We still have no clue how they're calculating that time frame.
The majority of 214 is all on that mountainside.
By the time we made it down the mountain, we couldn't believe how easy it was to walk through the forest path. Everything was flat! We were so tired and still sore from pushing ourselves so hard, but took one last look back to the mountain before getting to our car to drive the two hours home. In all we estimated we climbed for around eleven hours, climbed 1505 meters (4,938 feet), and covered a total distance of 24.9 km (15.5 miles). If you'd like to view the whole trail, Zach made a handy guide on this mildly interactive website. As we're getting closer to the end of our trip, we've been a bit anxious to get back to the US and get started on rebuilding our lives (and rejoining society). With all of the planning we've done for getting ourselves set up back home, we can sometimes forget to enjoy this last bit of our adventure. This climb helped us slow down and really appreciate the time we have left to explore, and showed us that there's still so much more to experience.
Until the next mountain,
H W Z
p.s. Our host Elke told us when we returned that the entire trail we hiked (both up 213 and down 214) she used to complete in a single day when she was younger and that's the most impressive thing I've ever heard.
