Czech trip

Soooo on Friday after getting done working out in the gym my mom came up with the plan to check out the huge sandstone spyers on the border of the Czech Republic and Germany. The timing was perfect because I had just finished up my job stuff for the week and didn't have anything seriously planned for the weekend so we planned to leave by 8 or 9 in the morning to head out. That didn't happen because, long story short I woke up at 11:30 (Darrow Alpine Start)! We quickly printed papers off line and packed our stuff into the van and where on the road by 2. As soon as we left we got hit by two really bad rain storms, so bad in fact that cars on the autobahn were going 40km/h. After getting through the two rain storms we got stuck in a stau just outside of Dresden for 45 minutes so by the time we got to the Elbe Valley it was nearly 6. We ended up going all the way through to Czech on accident but it turned out okay because we found a climbing place that had a guidebook of the area, a guidebook that I would later find out is the most confusing guidebook of all time!

Guest houses

After coming back from Czech and into the town of Bad Schondau we pulled over to where my mom said were,"the cutest guest houses", looked for a Zimmer Frei sign and got a room for the night. The total cost of a spur of the moment guesthouse stop for two? A whopping 50 Euros for both of us! A good price and it even included breakfast. After getting our stuff into the room we made our way out onto the town to search for some food and eventually settled on an Italian Restaurant.

Funny story: After eating, we made our way back to the guest house along the road and a bunch of semi old run-down houses. After walking for a while I spotted a mouse and started chasing it along the fence line while my mom stayed behind because she is, "deathly afraid of mice".  After a while the mouse stopped and I got passed it and it turned around started running back towards mom who then did what any freaked out person does and jumped INTO THE ROAD, screaming as she went! Luckily for her (and me) no car was coming but her scream turned a few lights on in the houses we were walking by. With a great night ender (for me!) we hit reading our books and fell asleep knowing that tomorrow we would be checking out the sandstone towers of Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland! 

Egg hats!

 We woke up at 7:30, early enough for me a to take a shower and be ready for breakfast. The breakfast was a standard european, with four pieces of bread, a selection of meats and cheeses and a hard boiled egg but what was different was how the egg was presented. Instead of letting the egg get cold, there was a little hat placed over the top of it. My mom liked this so much she bought one from the guest house owner! Already excited about finding the egg-hats we kept the energy going and started packing the car back up. In ten minutes the car was packed and we were saying farewell to the guest house owners. We were now on our way to the main attraction: the sandstone towers! We drove out of Bad Schondau, past Hohnstein and into Bastei! The drive was short but the scenery was great. I don't think we would have made it all the way if I was driving because of how much rock there was on the sides of the road but in no time we were pulling into the parking lot.

Towers!

Walking down to the towers we couldn't tell that we were even at an overlook because of how thick the trees were, but when we got to the first viewing platform everything became clearer. There were towers going on and on far out into the distance. The Elbe river flowed by and instantly I thought that this might be the most beautiful climbing area I had ever been to! As we made our way to the different viewing platforms, I could see that there were little white books at the top of most of the larger towers for climbers  to sign after climbing them.  We walked around to the different platforms for an hour just looking at all the different shapes and sizes until we noticed that there were more and more older people showing up. 

Your new background?

We   quickly made our way out of the tourist zones and back to the car as the road became gridlocked with tour busses. I guess the best time to check out the towers is in the early morning because after that the viewing platforms get way to crowded. We decided to head back to Bad Schonau to check out a local climbing shop that I had seen while searching for a restaurant the night before. They were packed with the newest gear but among the caribiners, nuts, and cams they were selling 3ft lengths of cordolette because in this area you can only use knots as gear because metal is too strong and makes marks on the rock. The guy at the shop was nice and showed me how to use the knots as pro and showed me a book about many of the first guys to climb the towers. It was amazing to see that they had been climbing like this since the 1960s. We were in the shop for 30 min and walked out with a wood spike to push the knots into the cracks and a large knot on a rope that was called a "kinder Kopf or kinder head. I looked it up later and the same knot is known in the US as a monkey's fist. I walked out of the store with a rekindled motivation to at least see the towers further up the valley so we took off across the Czech border again. We passed the first spot that I had planned on going to, and then we went to the second turnoff in an area called Labske. Before making our way up the trail, we packed everything we had into the stow-and-go and made our car look not worth the time to break into. After that we were off walking up a trail into the ever-thickening forest. Passing large boulders that alone would have been worth the trip, we pushed up. After 30 minutes of uphill walking, we finally caught a glimpse of white sandstone through the trees but kept walking. Five minutes later it was apparent that we were walking at the base of the sandstone towers. We stopped to get a drink and I heard someone in the forest  and some metal hitting the rock so I headed up along side the tower and around the base until we made our way through a canyon like section and to the climbers. The climbers were German and looked to be having a great time throwing knots into the rock and not questioning whether they would hold a fall or not. They enjoyed the view from the top of the second pitch of a climb that topped out on top of a tower. 

The hill

I wanted to get to the top of a tower too but with my mom in tow I new that climbing would have to wait for another day. We kept walking along the base until we found a climbable slope that looked like it headed to the top of a tower. We huffed it up the steep hill for 30 minutes clinging to trees and rocks along the way until we made it to the top and got to see the view.  The panorama was amazing. Views as far as the eye can see into the Czech Republic and on the other side we could see Germany in the distance. The hike was  definitely worth it but after snacks and water it was time to head down. Going do we chose to follow a path around what we had just gone up which ended up going right back to where we had begun on the path. 30 minutes later we were loading our stuff back into the car and thinking about the long drive back home to Weiden.  

The View

On the way out we decided that we needed gas, but instead of getting gas at am Esso that was 10km down the road we decided to find one as we went on the autobahn. We ended up going quite a ways and by the time I had typed "Esso" into the GPS we had 25km until empty. The GPS said we were 20km from the station so it would't be a problem. What we didn't realize was that when the GPS says that it is 20km away, it means that the turn off is 20km away. As we made the turn and started looking for as Esso the GPS flicked to a new number: 6km. We only had 5km until the tank was empty so this was a surprise to us but we kept driving. As we got to the turn off at 6km it said that that gas station would be in 3 kms. At this point the car was running on nothing. The distance to empty was 0km and it had been this way for a good 2km. I was on the edge of my seat and my mom was running red lights (literally). We got to the top of the hill and could see the Esso sign in the distance. 

The car rolled into the gas station and collapsed. After gassing up we went in to pay and the guy told us that we were lucky because in 18 minutes he would be closed! After that we made our way all the way back to Weiden without incident. This was a great trip but next time I plan on climbing a tower or two!!

-Owen