Reit im Winkl.

I left home at 6am and drove south, passing Reit im Winkl just before 0800.
Driving on to the Austrian border, I parked on the German side, just down a
short lane leading to the start of several walks, near a klaranlage of some
sort.  I parked near another car, which I presume belonged to the lone jogger
who appeared shortly afterwards.

The day was looking good, with a bright blue sky overhead, and as I set off up
the forest track, the valley air made a cool impression on me.  After some 300
m, I stopped and looked around at the forest on one side, and the open field to
my right.  There was no-one around, and I removed my t-shirt and shorts,
placing them in my rucksack.  I very nearly did not see these again until the
end of the day, when I returned to this same place, some 6 hours later.

I now started to sweat as I laboured up the forestry track for perhaps 20
minutes before reaching a small track which ran next to the stream in the base
of the valley up which the forestry track had been leading me.  I took this,
and felt immediately more in tune with the environment.  On the forestry track,
somehow I had felt more prone to meeting farmers and forestry workers, and not
so happy about being naked at this early stage in the walk.  Walking up the
path next to the stream was a fine contrast, the trees bending in on me and the
path meandering up, over and through small obstacles like odd rocks, fallen
trees and the stream itself.

I came out onto an open field, at the top of which, as I approached, I could
see a farmer moving in and out of his barn. He left on his tractor and I
wandered down the repaired mountain farm road in the now sweltering heat at
0900 in the morning.  I passed the German-Austrian border, marked by a pair of
concrete posts in the ground with an B and a D on one side, and an O
on the other.

At the border, were a couple of large farm/barns, surrounded by open green
fields which swept up into the steep forests on either side.  I passed these
going along the easy track, and passed a small hut which appeared to have a man
maintaining a fish pond or two.  He stopped his work momentarily to watch me
walk down the track, 100 m away from him, but continued as soon as I had passed
by.  I walked on until, in the middle of another open field, I came to a
t-junction with a large track.  Now I turned left and quickly found a walking
route through the steep woods.  Steadily I worked my way uphill through the dry
leaved strewn woods, using a track which was clearly frequented, but only now
and then.  The walking was steep and strenuous but at an ambient temperature
under the trees which afforded protection from the high mountain sun.  I was
now at a height of approx. 950m 

Amongst the trees, a huge dark shape loomed above me.  It was a large tree
which had been growing atop a big rock or outcrop, and had lost the battle with
gravity.  The tree had tipped over, uphill, and was resting at about 50 degrees
against severl other trees which were bent to a curve under the weight.  The
darkness was the earth, moss and roots which had been torn away from their hold
on the rock beneath, creating a wide earthy roof.

After some time, I came out into a partial clearing and the trail levelled out
for a while.  I stopped here for a short bite and a sip of my orange drink, the
sweat making my skin glisten in the bright alpine sun.  Here was a fine alpine
view, the nearby trees providing a foreground for the immense mass of rock and
earth across the valley called the Unterberghorn.  The valley through which the
GrossAche flowed, stretched out before me, with patchy fields and barns spread
around.

Setting off once more, I passed the WeissensteinAlm, with one working mountain
barn, and another collapsed and abandoned one.  The trail now zig-zagged up
through yet more woods, and I sweated my way up and through the trees, thankful
for their cool covering.  I entered another open area around another mountain
barn, this one also looked more or less abandoned, but in a servicable state.
Walking on through the high forest, I was, after nearly 3 hours of steady
walking approaching my goal.  Now I met my first walker, an elderly gentleman
with nordic-like walking sticks/poles coming down the trail in the opposite
direction, with whom I exchanged a short greeting.  He seemed a bit surprised
to see this naked man walking up the hill towards him, but otherwise
unperturbed.

I was now quite close to the StraubingerHaus and, because my time was limited
as I had to get back to get Jennifer to Karate, decided to head for the
EggenAlm, instead of my original target of the Fellhorn, for lunch.  At one
point, while crossing some limestone clints, my leg slipped suddenly down
through the snow, and I ended up with my naked groin astride what may well have
been rock, but fortunately turned out to be snow.  I worked my way over to the
south-east side of the hump, so that I would not be in direct view of the busy
sounding gasthof, and found a perfect spot to sit where I could admire the
grand view of the distant snow capped alps to the south.  The view was
stupendous, with the long valley foreground, the enormous mass of rock surging
from the forest across the river, and the glacial mountains ranged behind, as
if a curtain of snow and ice covered rock.

I sat for maybe 20 minutes, munching and recovering some energy, before setting
off on the return trip.  As I left the hump and approached the beginning of the
forest, I noticed a light green cardigan on a nearby rock.  I could not see
anyone, nor had I seen any movement while working my way towards this point on
the trail, but either I had missed this earlier when I had passed this rock,
(which I felt to be unlikely), or the owner of said cardigan was hiding behind
a tree somewhere nearby, and presumably watching me.  I looked around for a
moment, and decided to continue on my walk.

It was now approximately 1300 and I could expect to meet more people on the
trail, although the route I had taken had not seemed particularly frequented.
Reversing my route through the woods was far easier than the sweaty ascent,
though I was still hot and tired.  After a short way, I saw a large black
labrador coming towards me, who I said hello to, shortly followed by a 50-ish
but fit looking couple.  We exchanged slightly surprised greetings and
continued each on our own way.

Shortly after this, another smaller dog came past me, and I passed another
couple, somewhat older this time.  We also exchanged greetings.  This time the
woman said something to the man, who answered her grumpily, so I'm not sure
they were so pleased to see a naked man with a rucksack descend from the track
through trees above them.  I was alone again and I now continued to retrace my
steps, past the 2 huts and along the flat section of open bracken and rock
covered high grassland.  

The feeling of being alone and naked high on an alpine pasture has to be
experienced to be believed.  Across the valley, the summer ski-lifts had
clearly been working to bring up many para-gliders, and the air seemed to be
full of them as they turned in the hot currents of air around the head of the
valley and the top of the mountain just in front of me.  I counted at least 44
distinct chutes in the air at once, and goodness knows how many I missed
seeing, because they were around the corner of the hill, or hard to see in the
sunlight.  Added to this were a couple of high-flying gliders, a
propeller-driven plane and a helicopter.  So much for finding solitude in the
mountains.

I continued my descent on my now tired feet, and quickly passed the
Austrian-German border with the fishing pond man still hard at work in the
now shaded summer heat.  I passed another farmer cutting hay around a barn,
before turning to head up the track and back down the original forest.  As I
came over the crest of the hill, 100 m below me on the side of the field, I
passed within about 20 m of a young couple with a baby.  He was looking away at
the woman under the sun umbrella, and she was looking directly out at me.  I
waved cheerily as I passed, and she had a large grin on her face as she waved
back.  They watched me as I descended the field and took the track next to the
stream between the trees.

The forest was welcomingly cool after the recent heat of the open fields, and I
now walked all the way down the forestry track, to a point just above the main
footpath where I had originally stripped off, some 300 m from my car.  I
reluctantly pulled my shorts back on, and returned to my car, before driving
home.  It was 1400, I had been out for 6 hours of hard walking, completely
naked, through the alpine forest and fields, reaching a height of 1500m