Wutachschlucht

From the plateau above the Wutach river in the southern Schwarzwald, it's hard to tell the river has gouged out a gorge ~200 meters deep. This morning we parked at the end of a subsidiary gorge, the Lotenbachklamm, hiked in a mile until it met up with the Wutachschlucht, and continued another 9 miles along the gorge. We made a brief but disappointing detour to see some ruins--oh, how they beckon!--that turned out to be closed off due the threat of falling rocks. At the end of our hike, we took the plush touristy shuttle bus back to our car.

I have now hiked enough in the Schwarzwald to know that when trail signs urge you to wear "sturdy footgear," they really mean "wear shoes, but not sandals or high heels." Maybe we're choosing weenie trails, but I have yet to encounter a maintained hiking trail outside of the Alps that requires anything more than sneakers.

After dinner, Elias soaked his weary 8-year-old bones in the bathtub. Helping him out of the tub, Stefan noticed the water was still clear and soothingly toasty. Stefan asked, "How dirty is this water? If it's basically clean, I might just use it to take a bath too." Elias replied helpfully, "it's still pretty clean. I only licked it twice."