Back to the mountains!

Since I moved to the northern part of Germany I didn't have the chance to go back to the Alps. It's been mostly work and horse training I've been occupied with. However, I miss the mountains a lot and so it was decided that this years summer vacation would be partly spend in Switzerland. Once again I chose the area 'Bergell' just because I already know it a bit. Nuka and I are fairly experienced when it comes to mountaineering and camping, for Tobi it was a totally new experience and he wasn't quite sure what he had signed up for :-).

Maloja

We ended up hiking for four days carrying everything we needed to sleep and eat. Even Nuka had to carry her pack and the way she looked at me in the morning when I put it on she was not too happy about it. However, two seconds later she'd already forgot about it and was happy to run.

Here we spent our first night

Nuka always acts silly as soon as she realizes that we're finished for the day

Our tent was/is super light, but let's say it's...hmm...cozy.

 

Waiting for Tobi and yes, it already had snow on the ground. What you can't see here is that this route was quite exposed and not easy going.

Keeping up the spirits!

Some hours later we set up camp at the foot of a glacier.

Kitchen

Nuka is a crazy watch-dog.

Trying to figure out our next route. We were a little restricted due to a very dangerous route we didn't want to take. Nuka like always right on top of it.

Yep, she sleeps with us in this super light tent. Thanks for your concern but she always has enough space. There were some complaints from other roomies, however, she was not concerned by that.

Like I said...cozy!

A little thunderstorm...

Glacier

I've never been in a glacier before.

Tobi outside the glacier

Nuka and I had to check it out.

Happy End!

Germany's wild horses

I have been living my German life for about a year and half now since I returned from Canada. There have been some ups and quite some downs for me. 

However, since I moved further North in Germany than I ever intended, I'm also learning a lot about Germany. This summer I had my first real vacation in Germany and enjoyed it a lot. Also, I have a friend who lives in the old Eastern Germany and he invited me home to his place. There are so many nice places in Germany and I didn't even know!

So, I'm becoming kind of a tourist which also includes the closer vicinity of where I live. For this weekend I had planned to visit the population of wild horses about an hour drive from my house. Those ponies have been in this areas literally for centuries and were first mentioned in writing sometime in the 14th century.They adapted perfectly to the scarce food source of marshland, swamps, and sandy grounds for hundreds of years and are supposed to be truly native to the area. But as the story goes, with progressing land use, more and more grounds were turned into farmland and the 'Dülmener Wildpferd' was endangered to become extinct.

The herd

 

A Lord from the Croy dynasty decided to catch the remaining wild horses and let them roam on his land. This continues until today and the wild horses still 'belong' to the Lords of Croy.

The area the about 400 horses are kept on is about 3.5 square kilometers big and is half forest and half open grass lands. The herd is kept wild which also means there won't be a vet or farrier involved. This might seem harsh at times, but it keeps the gen pool healthy because just like in freedom only the strongest and fittest survive and are able to breed.

Once a year, they bring all horses into an arena and catch the yearling colts by hand and separate them from their bands to be sold. If the youngsters would be left with the group they would start trying to form their own bands and bloody fights between the stallions would be the result. So, they are auctioned off and can be bought as recreational ponies. In fact, last year I had the chance to work with one of those ponies newly broken in.

 

First, I wondered why even a lot of the obviously older horses had such short tails,but then I saw they had found good use for the fence which holds them captive.

 

Like always, Nuka was with me...a bit whinny because she had to stay on leash, was not allowed to play with the teacup sized dog, and also not allowed to hopp into the horses' waterhole. But she lived through it...