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| Null points for style |
Only ~35km away on top of Lipple (one of my favourite climbs in the Black Forest) is the start of several "loipen" - cross country trails. It was a crazy journey up today on very icy roads. Not black ice, but thick, heavy obvious ice at every corner and every stretch. Basically thick snowy icy ice everywhere. Up above Marzell, where the gradient really kicks in, I could feel the car losing traction but we made it up to the junction at the top - where we met a worried group of drivers. One had abandoned her car on the road up from Badenweiler to Blauen, no surprises here as this is a very steep climb, and much colder than other parts of these hills. The other drivers wanted to know if the road we had climbed was safe, not in any way, but winter tires get you a long way.Today I was with Falk Schneeman so with a name like that you can guess I was trailing a long way behind the snowman all day. Today was much faster than my previous ski trips this winter, could be the icy conditions but mostly due to the snowmans incessant pace and lack of rest stops. We started with the 8.5km loop south called Gleichen loipe. Ideal as a warm up loop, relatively flat but of course any descent has me in trouble and wishing for some form of braking device. I fail to see how cross country skis on icy bashed surfaces have any control whatsoever once out of the prepared tracks. I asked Falk, who is an experienced cross country skier, but he said, "Yes, you just head down, if theres an obstacle in the way I dont know what you'd do." Great!
The trails at Lipple are ample for me, no need to travel any further if the snow is here. Nice to know theres a connection over to the loop starting at Kreuzweg, another great road climb in the Black Forest.
Really nice little Ski hütte near the car park, serving hot food and drinks. Potato and schübling (type of sausage) soup and roll was very tasty. Well worth a visit at the end of a tiring Langlauf session.
http://www.lipple.de/index.html
