After our minimalist breakfast of bread, jam and coffee (since we not big on meat and cheese at breakfast) we were on the road by 8:00am. Everything feels much easier now I.e. the scale of pain is less. Climbed a ridge & descended to an Alm where an enterprising high altitude cattle farmer sold us drinks.  

 After reading the write up which described the climb ahead as unsuitable for anyone with vertigo, I made the decision to take a lower and longer route. The boys however were undeterred and more than happy to climb a peak which included a shuffle along an unprotected narrow edge (no rope) with a huge drop below. Right decision for me – no pressure to catch up now, I ambled along for the next few hours taking photos and surrounded by flowers everywhere.  

 En-route I found another cattle farm at Boden Alm where I got really great home-made sausage, sauerkraut, mustard & bread. Delicious.   So far I had been getting on fine with my German, but some dialects are hard to follow. Maybe just country folk.    

  The overall trade off for my wimpy detour was that I eventually had to make a long detour and an 800m vertical climb to get to Leutkirche Hütte (2251m)  

 where the boys were already waiting. A leisurely afternoon was spent at the hut, indoors this time since a chilly wind was blowing off the snow. Plenty of card games followed. . and huge maths discussions 

  Really hungry these days and couldn’t wait until dinner at around 18:00.

Another night in the Mattraslager…….. communal sleeping can sometimes be interesting!  Being Saturday night, a number of folk had made this a weekend Jaunt, so much partying and noise (them, not us)