Steinebach to Immenstadt

Tomorrow I head out on my first multi-day hike in Germany, solo. I've joked for years that I know enough German that I won't starve in a marketplace, and now we get to find out if that's true! 

My original plan was to hike from Stefan's childhood home in Steinebach am Woerthsee to our 2009 sabbatical home-away-from-home, Freiburg im Breisgau--a distance of about 350 km (taking a southern enough route to enjoy views of the Alps). I invited Elias to hike with me, and he suggested that perhaps he might enjoy spending just a wee bit of time between the end of his spring semester and the start of his summer internship doing something other than walking all day long.

We found a happy compromise by splitting my trek into two parts: first, Steinebach to Lindau over eight days in April; second, with Elias, Freiburg to Konstanz over eight days in May, following the historic Querweg.

Stefan decided to join me by car and bike for the first trek. His plan was to drive ahead each day to our hotel for the evening, unload his bicycle, and go for a scenic ride; we'd then meet up again in the evening. Obviously his broken leg has nixed that. But all is not lost. I'll be walking solo, but I'll stop two days short of Lindau, in Immenstadt--chosen because it has a train station. Stefan will meet me there on the last afternoon of my trek. This is six days from now, and we're both reasonably confident that he'll be mobile enough to be a tourist and enjoy the scenery. We're hoping to eventually complete the Immenstadt-Lindau gap together this summer, over a less strenuous 3-4 days, once he's had more time to recover.

In May, Elias and I will tweak the end of the Freiburg-Bodensee Querweg route by turning off the trail in Wahlhausen (several km before Konstanz) and taking a ferry across the Bodensee to Ueberlingen, where Stefan will pick us up. This detour will save Stefan about an hour of driving (assuming he's back to driving by then). From Ueberlingen, we'll continue on to Steinebach for a quick visit to celebrate Tante Puppi's 100th (!) birthday, after which Elias will head to the airport and Stefan and I will drive back to Freiburg.

I've been obsessively checking weather forecasts all week. Just like the forecasts in NC, the German forecasts change significantly from one day to the next; what started as probably sunny all week shifted to probably drenchingly rainy all week, to mostly cloudy, and now back to rainy. The wettest day will be my longest hiking day (Lechbruck to Zell near Eisenberg), so I've tweaked that route to include a few villages where I can pause to dry out and possibly find something warm to eat or drink. The day was supposed to end with some hilltop ruins; I'm planning to backtrack to see them the following morning instead, weather permitting.

I've been meaning to test pack my backpack all week, but instead I've been filling it with groceries or paperback books for weight. Since I'll be sleeping in hotels, I won't need to carry a sleeping bag or tent, which means a significantly lighter load than I'd be carrying in the U.S. In contrast to National Forest camping in the U.S., dispersed camping in Germany is not allowed. Campgrounds aren't always easy to find, and they often cost half as much as a hotel, so I'm going to enjoy a bed and shower every night.