Alps with Friends

Alps with Friends

This trip can be broken up into 2 parts.

1. I am going with 2 friends who will travel with me from Berlin. Each will bring their touring bike and equipment. The plan would be to drop them off at a place, meet up in a few days and continue to the next destination together.

2. I will meet 1 friend at the train station at Bolzano. We will mainly stay in South Tyrol and hike quite a bit.

Part 1

The old plan was to go to Bolzano but the weather was going to be bad so we switched up our plan a bit and went to Écrins National Park instead.

Dogs are not welcome in Écrins

We arrived a week or so after the Tour de France had been here so there was still quite a buzz around the area.

I have to start here by saying that I found everything in France to be very expensive. Even though I was not paying for camping as I found quite a lot of stellplatzs in this region, I still managed to spend quite a bit of money. For example, I normally pick up food in a shop to eat at the top of a hike. On this trip, it was just bread, cheese, ham and onion. You would think this would not be an expensive meal, but these ingredients were costing me more than 10 euros. Crazy. FYI, I have no creativity when it comes to food. I will eat the same food every day until I get sick of it. On this trip, I had this same sandwich, every day, for the entire trip. I can now safely say I'm truly sick of ham, cheese and onion sandwiches. At least until next year.

The hikes, scenery and places to stay were abundant in Écrins but for me, the biggest drawback was that Cashew was not allowed in the nature reserves in the national park, so we could only get so far in a hike before we could go no further. Not happy with this but still I understand the reason behind it. If you have a dog, Écrins is still worth visit, but don't plan on any major hikes.

Breaking news - My friend just sent me a message, the plan was to meet up with the lads in Briancon in a day or so as that is where they will end up. So, once I knew when and where to pick them up, I made my plans to make my way to Briancon. I wanted to do my last hike in the region before I met up with them.

Cashew pushed to her limit

After the 4th hike - Lake of Belledonne, I realised I pushed Cashew too much. The hike had an assent of over 1200 meters. It was a lot even for me. Normally for me on a hike, I have my sandwich at the top, but this hike had no shade for the last kilometre, so I stopped 1k before the top with Cashew in the shade and had my food.

I planned to rest here, have food, freshen up, make it to the top and straight back to where I was as there were shade. After a long pause, we hit the final part of the accent.

I stopped now and again to give water to Cashew and I presumed it would be ok for her but as I got almost to the top of the hike, I noticed her very uncomfortable. I suddenly had a feeling she was getting close to heat exhaustion. I turned around immediately and soon had her neck deep in some ice cold water running off a nearby glacier. This seemed to have made her feel a bit better. I made my way back to the shade to give her some time to rest.

I felt like shit, I had a feeling I pushed Cashew too far on this hike and it became more clear to me that I need to lower my expectations of what Cashew is capable of. Cashew seemed to be a bit better after a long pause in the shade. Once I felt we were both comfortable, we hit the descent.

As soon as we go to the van, Cashew threw herself onto the passenger side and seemed exhausted. It was a long day for her, and me. She pretty much slept the rest of the day. I still didn't feel good about what happened and it was weighing on my mind.

Cashew's injury and Rude French People

The next day, I noticed Cashew had trouble walking and I felt even worse. Poor Cashew. I examined Cashew's paws but could see that they were cut up a bit, nothing else really stood out. It was obvious that her paws were just not up to the last few days of hiking. Before going on trips like this again, I need to bring her on long walks on rough terrain to get her paws a bit used to these hikes. Still, for now, I cleaned her paws up a bit and put some disinfectant on them.

The plan this day was to meet up with my friends in Briancon so Cashew and I made our way there in the van. While waiting, I decided to pop into the town centre to see if I could get a sim card for mobile data while in France. I found a shop and parked close but as Cashew couldn't walk, I carried her through the village and tied her up outside the shop.

The shop was packed. I waited in the queue. As I was making my way up the queue, I found myself next in line to be served. A man behind asked if could he wait in the shop as the shop had air conditioning. I said why not.

When the shop assistant came down and asked in French who was next, the man stood up and said he was, and took my turn. As I was a bit taken back, I put it down to just a single man.

Anyway, I held my tongue. Behing me, 2 little old ladies asked the same thing, could they stand in the shop as the shop had AC. I said why not. The same thing happened. My place was taken by 2 little old French ladies.

At this point, I made the decision never to live in France.

As Cashew had been outside in the heat on her paws I decided enough was enough and told them all where to go. U stormed out of the shop, picked up Cashew and went back to the van. Cashew obvlious as to what happened and seemed happy being paraded throug the streets.

Once I got back, I calmed down a bit and decided to take Cashew to the vet. I had an idea she would be ok but I still was not 100% sure so I decided not to take any chances. It was the right thing to do. I found one close by and took her. The vet was super, super nice to Cashew. That made me feel a lot better. She found that her paws were a bit swollen and gave me some pain killers and some anti-biotics. I was told I needed to rest Cashew for 5 days and she would be fine.

With this news, I instantly I felt a lot better.

Now, it's back to the van carraying Cashew. She seemed lighter now that I felt better.

On my way back to the van, I decided to stop by another mobile shop to see if I could pick up a French card. I managed to find a good deal. 100Gb of data anywhere in Europe, every month for 18 euros a month, and I could cancel at any point. Exactly what I want. I left my passport in the van, so I carried Cashew back to the van and once again, made my way back through the village centre back the shop carrying Cashew. By this stage, I think I've walked about 4 km carrying Cashew with me. But she seemed to be enjoying it. Also, the people in the town seemed to enjoy the sight of a big hairy man carrying a dog up and down the streets.

That is about as far as I could carry her. She is only 22kg but that gets very heavy after a while.

Last note on this chapter, what the hell is wrong with Germany's mobile rates? You would not get this mobile deal in Germany.

Resting Time in the Ardèche

After meeting up with my friends We decided to make our way to the Ardèche national park for a few days. For me and Cashew, it would give us time to recover and rest up. I found a nice campsite where we could chill for a few days.

I planned to work on the ogham-stone while Cashew recovers but it was a good thing I got that internet.

I somehow managed to wipe my computer before leaving and I couldn't do anything. All I could do was look at youtube for the few days I was there.

Still, I relaxed quite a lot and was happy to see Cashew recover every day. Also, it was funny seeing her after the painkillers.

My impression of the Ardèche is one of extreme heat. There seemed to be water sporadically placed throughout the park, but between those places of water, there was an extreme lack of moisture. I remember thinking if my van breaks down here, and I need to carry Cashew, we would both die without help.

Onto South Tyrol

Once the lads met up with us, we packed up the van and made our way to South Tyrol.

Here we spent 1 night in Bolzano before we all parted ways. I managed to lose and find my phone (long story) while on my way to meet up with my friends in a restaurant. It was a nice evening and a nice way to say goodbye. We had a good time.

Part 2

The next day, Lindey arrived and the plan was to go back hiking. Cashew seemed to have recovered and the plan was to travel around South Tyrol and hike.

We made our way up in the van to Curon Venosta and stopped a few hikes while on our way to (Pfelders)[https://goo.gl/maps/PH12MbdosJnreeUDA].

I have to admit, Camping Bergkristall, the place we stayed at was a nice spot. The drive up there was amazing. The campsite itself was beautiful and the area around it was amazing also.

The last few days I had with my friend were enjoyable.

Back to Berlin.

This trip was not too eventual. I picked up my friend in Innsbruck, packed up his bike, and drove back from Bolzano to Berlin in 1 day. We listen to an 8-hour-long podcast about Ernest Shackleton on the way home and were both blown away by his story.

PodCasts

Here are some of the podcasts I listened to on this trip:

The Explorers Podcast - Ernest Shackleton

Dan Carlin - Blitz Human Resources

Frederick Douglas - Life of an American slave

Shout out to Thomas Crean. An absolute horse of a man. He was mentioned quite a bit in Ernest Shackleton's story.