We started out at 9:30 and reached the top just before lunch time. On top, we met a family from Munich we had met previously in the Stahlhouse. The man was celebrating his 62nd birthday, organized by his daughter. He gave us each a swig out of his coke laced with cognac. There were crows around waiting for food and one of them even took a piece of cheese out of my hand.

After lunch, we started across the ridgeline unfortunately going every downwards. I hate losing altitude, but that's how it works in the mountains. It's not an amusement park - they didn't plan the mountains for an even tour. You have to go up and down to go anywhere. It was still foggy and the trail was occasionally hard to follow, especially since we couldn't see the surrounding mountains. We joined up with a funny fellow who didn't know which way to go. He spoke with stutter, looked like a Silicon Valley nerd, and was a very awkward hiker through the rocks. (Christine on the other hand was a natural.)

The fog started to lift a bit. Actually, we were descending and getting below the clouds. At one point we had a good view of a Gamnse, a local mountain goat.

The three of us hiked all the way to the Seeleinsee, a very small lake (at least now). Thank goodness the odd fellow went on - he was beginning to get on my nerves after a few hours. We rested at bit and then went on. Just after we pasted the turnoff to the emergency house (Bergwachütte), we started to climb again, over big rocks, going fom 1809 meters to 1949 meters at the turnoff to the hard deadend climb to the Kahlersberg. At this point we found the welcome ice again and filled up our empty bottles.

Unfortunately this was just a pass to a long deep valley. We kept going down. And down. At some point, I was worrying that we were on the wrong trail. But the sad truth is that this was a long deep valley that was take us back deep into the forest just above the Obersee, which is at the south end of the Königsee.

We came and passed the turnoff to the Gotzenalm, which would have required an immediate climb. The Wasseralm was not much further and it didn't look like much of a climb on the map since the relative heights of the huts was not much different. However, we underestimated how deep in the forest we would go.

Eventually, we climbed again. This was a series of steep switchbacks with a sharp dropoff towards the Obersee. The signs warned us not to step one stone off of the path because it was lifethreatening. So we climbed quickly from 1240 to 1415 meters where we emerged from the forest to find a plain filled with beautiful streams and the Wasseralm.

It was only about 19:30 (another ten hour day) but there were lots of people already there, mostly having come an easier way from the Obersee. They teased Christine that it was full and we would have to go back down. But of course there is always room, even if you have to sleep on the floor with Thermorests. But after a nice dinner, they even found proper beds for us in the lager. We didn't have to join the couple in the honeymoon suite reached by climbing up one corning of the hut.

That evening and morning, we also got to use their wonderful bathrooms. There was also a cookhouse and a little house further out where the nice people who ran the hut actually lived. Unlike the other huts, the Wasseralm is associated neither with the DAV nor the Friends of Nature and is instead privately operated.