Thorbach - Giswil
28km
Elevation: up 1000m, down 1425m
Min altitude: 484m, max altitude: 1734m

I had packed my stuff by 8.00 and went to have breakfast at the restaurant nearby. I had to wait until 9.30 to pay for the campsite (I couldn't last night), so I had plenty of time. It was enough that I wasn't hungry for a while, so that fixed the problem of having too little food.
Back to the campsite to pay and pick up my pack and then off. I tried to put some speed into it, because the sooner I would get to Sörenberg, the greater the chance I could still go somewhere else and not have to stop after two hours. The path followed the river for a while and I saw a squirrel, then it went off into a bit of forest and up a hill. I started thinking I should have stayed with the road as it would have been faster, but when I looked at the tourist map of the nearby area the campsite had, Sörenberg was some 300m higher than Flühli anyway and the route actually cut off a part, so no problem. I treated myself to some blueberries from one of the little self-service shops and arrived in Sörenberg at 11.40. It felt really weird all the way not to know if this would be my last hiking day or not.
Sörenberg is very much a skiing center, that was clear on all sides. The plus side of that was that things like the small supermarket were open. Though the tourist office was closed, but there was a restaurant that, when I asked, said they had wifi. They did, though my work phone wouldn't connect with it, but there was a public network, so I used that. I needed to check the GPS app to see if I could go anywhere else today. Giswil turned out to be 6 hours, excluding breaks and delays. It was past 12.00 and I still had to buy food, so I thought I might be able to leave at 13.00 and decided I better hurry, because it would be cutting it close. But staying in Sörenberg all day didn't seem attractive either, and I have to say that with the cold and rain I'm somewhat done camping for the moment. So, I hurried.
I left at 13.00, following the river again, through a bit of forest, always going slightly up.
In the process of getting wifi I needed to access my email, and then I learned that the other of my two favourite festivals, CaDansa, was cancelled again. So with that and having to go home and leave the mountains I felt really sad. And it started to rain.
That was pretty much the mood for the rest of the day. I climbed upwards through fields and rain (between Sörenberg and Giswil there are some mountains in the way), then past a small lake, and following a road. Then the path turned off the road, I got one of the rocky paths that I like and climbed ever higher. The pass was around 1700m. I looked left, at a grassy top with cows (I was jealous of the cows because they were higher up than me) and right at the rocky summits I like so much and I wanted to be on. But there was no time, I had to go on. From the pass I could see the lake I would more or less have to go to, Giswil is a bit south of the lake. And at 480m so it would be a long way down.
The first part of the descent was more of a mudslide than a path. I slipped and slid between cows towards a sort of road, which went down with a lot of tight curves. Then the signs pointed me into the forest and stayed there for a long time. Beautiful forest, though with the rain and the having to watch where I put my feet I couldn't look at it all the time. Sometimes very steeply down, sometimes less, until I came to the first abri since Sörenberg, where I took a break. At 18.30. By that time my eta in Giswil had moved from 19.00 to 20.00, approximately.
After the break I came to a beautiful waterfall, but unfortunately didn't have time for a closer look. It started raining again and the forest was full of wet brown leaves. Looked a lot like autumn.
Always down, eventually I got out of the forest (which was good because under the trees it was already getting dark) and walked on and beside the road, to Giswil. My last look at a stream, the view of the mountains (though much was still covered in clouds), the forests, the whole beautiful landscape that made me so happy. It made me sad to have to say goodbye to it, I feel so at home here.
Then suddenly I was at the train station, and on a train. It was nice that it was warm in the train but other than that it felt quite unreal. I went to Luzern, where it took a lot of trouble, time, and walking to find a hostel where I could still check in. I got there around 23.45. So now I'm in a hostel, tomorrow I'll be on a train back home. This feels so weird and unreal.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad