Via Alpina Stage 22/21

Today was a roller coaster of emotions.  We discovered that the next stage of the trail looped back to the current town we are in and decided not to do that stage.  Once we joined the following stage the trail was beautiful and easy to hike.  Mostly through ski slopes.  After lunch the trail became harder to find.  Every road or trail crossing we would have to stop and check our map because there were no signs.  Shadow was a broken record.  "We are off the trail.  Not on the trail.  We lost the trail."  This became annoying once we descended into tree line.  

I call it a "Controlled Forest."  People own land in the woods and hire a person to tell them which trees to cut for winter wood.  So far we have seen no clear cutting which is ugly and is bad for erosion.  Anyways,  after navigating through the multiple forest roads with no signs, we end up at a house.  A man was outside working in the yard.  We waved and turned around thinking we were off course again and hiked back to the last fork in the road.  Nope, the trail goes right between his house and barn.  He just laughed as we reappeared from the woods to ask him.  Turns out his house and and few others we passed were built between 900-1,000AD.  

While being frustrated in the woods with no signs, we began stressing over a flat spot to sleep.  The trail is set up to basically day hike and stay in huts or towns every night.  We started complaining about going into town and staying in another inn.  Once we realized that we were trying to turn this trail into something it's  not, we reset our minds and decided to hike this trail the way it was made to hike and not the way we want to hike it.  Poor Shadow and Mouse has to travel Europe and stay in a hotel every night.  Seriously?  We want to sleep on the ground with crappy food?  I think there is something wrong with us.  The conversation continued as we walked into town.  We only have a few more weeks before our Eastern Europe hike.  There we will be begging for a nice place to sleep and amazing food.  We are so lucky to be able to see this part of Europe.  

I sat on a bench looking for accommodations on my phone while Shadow went into the local pizzeria to ask about a place to stay.  He quickly came back out and said the bartender was not happy that Shadow only spoke English.  This the first person we have met that was rude.  The only two places in town were  180 Euros a night and a cheaper place 1.5 miles down a busy curvy road with no sidewalks.  Our optimistic bubble had popped.  Without another option we threw our packs on and started back up the trail.  Luckily we found some water and a slightly sloped flat spot about a mile away.  Needless to say, neither of us had much to say on the walk out of town or over dinner.  

Controlled Forest.

Bees in a barn.

Where we are heading next.