Friday evening, Grosser Arber. Mike, Aliah, Dennis, Basti, Henry and Andreas. 17 km. The lower trail was dry and clear and we started fast — the way you do when the legs are fresh and the air is cold and everything feels possible. Somewhere above 1,200 metres the snow arrived and didn’t stop. Spikes on. The mountain became a different proposition entirely.
One summit. We timed it perfectly without meaning to — hit the top just as the sun was going down. For a few minutes nobody moved. The whole Bavarian Forest turning orange and then pink and then blue in every direction, the Czech border somewhere in the haze. Then the headtorches came on and we ran back down in the dark, picking our way through ice and roots until the hut lights came into view. Fireplace. Hot food. That was enough.
Saturday we slept in. All of us. The mountains were still there and they could wait. We started the Rachel– Lusen reverse loop late — 36 km through the Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald, one of the last true wilderness areas in central Europe. Three summits. The snow was deeper than the day before, knee-deep in places, every hut locked and shuttered for the season. We drank from streams, ice at the edges, the water cold enough to hurt your teeth.
At km 30, with six kilometres left and nothing in the tank, the Rachelsee appeared. A glacial lake, 13 metres deep, completely frozen over — flat, white, not a crack in it. The cold plunge had been on the plan since before we’d packed our bags. All six of us stood at the edge, looked at the ice, looked at each other, and without a word kept running.
No plunge. No breathwork. Just the six of us, the snow, whatever was in our packs, and the kind of conversation that only happens when you’re tired and far from everything and there’s nothing left to perform.
53 km over two days. Four summits. One frozen lake. One fireplace. We’ll be back.
