The Hike to Hoch Blauen

 I just love the amazing fall colors.  So on Sunday when Luke, the dorm dad, asked who wanted to go on a hike up from Sonne (a boys dorm) to Hoch Blauen, I was excited to go.  In German "Hoch" means high and "Blauen" means blue which sort of translates to "blue mountain."  Which is very fitting from a distance.

This is the hill across the road from Sonne (sun) dorm.  AMAZING!

As we started up the hill/mountain, whatever you want to call it we found some goats that the girls just loved!

At the beginning of the hike, we were all in good spirits.  These are two of my wonderful Canadians!  About 10 minutes into the hike, the girls realized this was less of a walk and more of an uphill hike.  There were not necessarily prepared, but all of them made it to the top without complaining!!  Now that is the makings of a great hike!

Here we are on our first rest break.  Notice that most of the girls found walking sticks.   Around the mid-point Luke states, "I didn't know Hoch Blauen was German for Mt. Everest!"  It was uphill the entire way and were were all very tired.  An RA in Sonne told us it would take us about 45 minutes to get to the top, but he is a marathon runner and very athletic.  Instead of 45 minutes, it took us an HOUR and 45 minutes!!!

But finally we made it to the top and were rewarded with an amazing view!

If you look into the distance you can see some snow covered mountains, those are the Swiss Alps!
It is very rare that you can see them from Hoch Blauen, but God gave us a wonderful gift and cleared the small section where the Alps stand so we could see all the way there!!  What a gift!

Here is the crew resting at the top and taking in the view!

The treat that we got at the top was cookies and peanut M & Ms....we were a happy bunch!  However, we did not have time to hike back down since it was daylight savings day and it was getting dark an hour early.  So we tried to call Sonne and Blauen, the dorms near where we parked our van, but they were gone.  So Luke called Greg, the dorm day of HBR, and he drove all the way up the hill to take us down to our van.  THANKS GREG!  YOU ARE AWESOME!