highways and my mind pondered on how they came to be? Is it small towns maintain the the vintage feel of their history or is there something else? As I drove in the back country of Germany I barely had time to gain the speed limit from one town to the next. As we stopped at numerous places we quickly found that the Germany does not accept any credit cards other than Mastro Bank which we did not have. As we traveled though the day and stopped at many places, we found every time we needed cash not American credit cards but at a point late in the afternoon, I ran into a bank to get cash and discover the same isse (debit card was Visa), my climbing partner gathered the trash from the car and while looking for a restroom found around the corner a small upscale grocery store well stocked with everything we needed and by the way accepted visa.After replenishing our food cache, we continued south and looked for the border of Liechtenstein only 16 miles in length but we still had to traveled through the populated town of Bregenz and Lake Bregenzer Bucht. I have to admit after traveling all day, I questioned our desire to travel well outside the way into Germany. As we traveled though rush hour with 40 miles to got before reaching the border, the sun showed hints the day was coming to an end. Once we came to the border, we were stopped abruptly by border patrol which we hadn't seen since starting the trip in any of the countries. The officer looked in the back of your car and saw the chaos of gear and food, then quickly directed us to pull to the side. I did what I was told and realized I was driving barefoot and hoped there
wasn’t a law against it. He asked for my passport which was somewhere in the back and that only added to the confusion. He then asked me to turn off my car which I did, but because it was in neutral held by my foot on the brake and as I turned to the back to find my passport, my foot came off to brake and we started rolling forward. This again added to the confusion and still could not find my passport and needed to get out of the car to look for it in the back but I attemped to advised the officer of my intentions whom only spoke German and this again added to the confusion but hoped my actions would not get me shot or thrown in jail. It took me a while t find my passport and when I finally did, the officer left for 10 minutes and to my relief allowed us to proceed on. The style points on arriving in this country were zero.Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine microstate in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and
Austria to the east. Its size is just over 62 square miles with a population of 35,000 and Vaduz as its capital. Liechtenstein is the smallest German-speaking country in the world and a constitutional monarchy divided into 11 municipalities. Much of Liechtenstein's terrain is mountainous making it a winter paradise above the surrounding small farms and like Switzerland has a strong financial sector and known as a tax haven.As noted before when planning (or lack of planning) the trip we decided to keep the adventure flexible which this method of thinking has both pros and cons; on one hand without plans the expectations are low without a deadlines except climbing all the peaks in a by a certain date but on the other hand it requires a lot of work and plans will change once you're actually in the situation. The only resources we brought were copies of www.summitpost.com which are climbers blogs of there experience on the mountain. We also had the wikipedia printouts for both the mountains and countries. We were without reservations and as we drove into the country and started to ask where this mountain was located and to our dismay no had even heard
of it. We accepted this and moved south in the country thinking better luck would be closer to the southern border only 16 miles from where we stood. We stopped at a gas station but again no one had heard of Grauspitze and we started to get concerned about our ability to find it as full darkness has arrived.An interesting point of this philosophy is that you always seem to find a way and we were given a small clue from the women running the gas station whom she knew mountains were close by but the route to her knowledge was not possible from Liechtenstein but from Switzerland approached from the southern side. We mentioned the town we were seeking but she was also unfamiliar with and but suggested another town she guessed it might be near with general directions. Just as fast as we came into Liechtenstein we traveled out in the darkness with limited vision and made our way back into Switzerland and upon not finding the turnoff suggested earlier and
thinking we had gone too far again decided to again ask for directions to a young German girl and again was not familiar with our requests but believed we should follow the roundabout in front of the store to the north. As we continued we came upon a very small town in the middle of the night which happened to be what we're looking for in the beginning. We found the Autobahn which was appeared to be someone’s weekend backyard project which would take us to the starting point but of what we could read in the dark and in German, reservations were required and we had no idea if someone would even be there in the morning. Before we shrugged off our ability to use the tram, we needed to find a place to sleep after a long day of traveling in the car.Nested in the northern most section of Switzerland, this small village backed up against the hillside with cobblestone streets, gas streetlamps, and narrow roads that even
an compact car barely fit, and this night was extremely dark making our way through a series of small villages challenging. What we did know was the for sleep or hotel in German was “zimmer” and somehow found a small bed & breakfast in the bend of the road as it neared 10 pm, to our luck the host had one single room available and to her surprised we still wanted. She spoke a little English and we explained we were climbers and a single room was not a problem as we have spent countless hours in tents together much smaller than this room. She finally agreed and allowed us to have the room at a discounted double rate charge. We did not care because the showers were hot and to be clean again with our first shower of the trip made us feel again alive.When we woke up in the morning we still needed to find the route is up to the summit and decided to get in the car and search before coming back for breakfast. The area was now exposed to us and we were we surrounded by countless vineyards in a apparent counrty known for its
wine. We continued to search for a route and with the aid of a map on the side of the road, gave us the hints needed of the surrounding area including the mountains above which led us to an area we thought would be the best jumping off point different to that of the summitpost printout. A trailhead found, we went back to the bed & breakfast for European breakfast of meat, cheese, fruit, and basket of bread topped of with coffee from heaven. As we ate, we were surrounded by bottles of wine and a lot of friendly faces which we had no way of talking to. Once finished, I bought a bottle of wine and headed back to the trailhead we had previously decided.The trip up Grauspitz was the lowest elevation of all the mountains of the entire trip based on everything we read could be the hardest with a knife edge ridge climb to the final summit. The mountain everyone in the town knew was Falknis showed by the road map with direct access from the south end. It was apparent to the people we spoke to that the other peaks surrounding Falknis were rarely climbed due to the difficulty, but our goal was different requiring the to the trek to the true summit of this small country. Leaving the trailhead, the trail was a gravel road which came to a point surrounded by a grassy steep area peppered by numerous small huts which were most likely used by sheepherders in the
past. From here the apparent trail continued next to a small river coming from the mountain until we came to a point that the river was washed out but clearly crossed over to the other side. We came to a point on open hillside where the trail stopped and we looked for clues of the route. Looking back across the valley there was a guy who had left the trailhead before us who was climbing the other ridge toward a orange marker at the edge of the trees. He looking like he was a local and us thinking of what happened on our first peak with the Serbians, we turned around and decided to down climb and take his course. We continued up the ridge and quickly came to a dead end in the forest where the trail stopped and became precarious in the muddy brush above a cliff directly above the river. We had another decision to make as this local was no where in sight; we either could follow this route through the brush or go back to where we were which also didn't give us much clues. We already have been off route for over an hour but knew the other way must have been the right way originally as we saw back across a yellow sign peeking through the woods.Once we made our way back across, the signed pointed us in the right directlion and the trail was easy from that point on. We continued on, there were sheep roaming the countryside through as evident in the bells handing from there collars, we came to our first stop of a “climbers hut” as noted on the map below. Thinking as before a hut in the Alps would be more, this time we had
money and prepared from a cold beer, but as we approached the hut looked nothing like a place were climbers stopped and but a shack to host the shepherd of the sheep. We walked through the handmade gate but could find no signs to confirm this was the hut the trail markers guided us to, but as we continued on the trailmarkers confirmed this was the place as the arrows reversed. One thing was for certain this was not a place accommodating climbers for the night. We climbed on and as the hot sun passed overe us, we needed a place to stop for lunch but decided the best case was to achieve the ridgeline so any wind could keep the bugs away from us.We stopped at the ridge with the popular mountain in the backdrop and ate lunch, then made our way up the trail traversing the south ridge
including fixed anchors in many points due to the exposure. At only a few hundred feet from the true summit of Falknis, we saw the first glimpse of Grauspitze and to our dismay, dropped over 500 feet to a saddle to the virtually unclimbable west face. We thought about climbing Falknis since we were so close but decided if we did climb it and with the difficulty of our true summit this peak might lead to a consolation prize which were unwilling to do, so we moved on. During my study of summitpost.com, the east ridge is the route but not without difficulty and here we were way on the west side. There was even a moment in our minds (verbally said it) that this mountain might not be in the cards being so far from the correct route and needing to traverse 2000 feet to the basin and hike the entire length just to reach the 
other side and to turn around to climb back up the knife ridge the length of the basin. However, a joint of energy hit me and we were off down the ridge and committed to a second climb of the day.The country was remarkable shared only with a few hikers in the perfect afternoon sun even even thought I felt the solitude of the mountains as we hiked back across to the point we should have started before. This climb was exposured without fixed anchors
, and we thought of roping in a few tricky sections including a mermorial cross for a climber who died a few years back. We were careful with our steps and within the hour near the summit my steps onto the summit deserved some deep "yahoos" on a mountain that tested us in our drive, ability, and commitment to meet our goal by climbing the highest point in the country of Liechtenstein including the third of this journey. Across the U-shaped mountain ridge and valley below I could 
see another mountain would be nice to climb some day, but we were out of time. I come to find out that that mountain is named Glegghorn. To me at that moment, I was on the summit…I snapped a few pictures and started my way down the ridge to a point when I decided to take a shortcut straight down the step cliffs. I recollected a trailpost at the saddle with a turnoff to the hut were first looked for ealier in the day. The miles were shorter with views of the valley below and within a few hours a exposured hiking, we came to the hut with a dude drinking a beer and a young gal hut host
from Germany who was very friendly. Her "friend" seemed pissed we where there but she continued to talk and asked us if we were going to stay since she was the only one there for the night. We said we weren't and did not have money for a beer anyhow and carried on making our way out of the car. As we climbed off the steep ridge, we followed a large river to a point it was washed out requiring some route finding back to the main road. We eventually found it and were on our way on a gravel road to the trailhead.----
Not far from the main road we came to a grassy field where a handful of tents were peppered in the tall grass when like a moment from movie, a gorgeous blonde stepping out from a tent, glanced our way as she stretched her arms exposing everything about
her in the golden evening light, and turned and walked the other way. A interesting change to long days alone in the mountains. Once back at the road we walked the two miles back to the car, pulled the gear off our backs, and made our way to find a spot for dinner. Still having food from a grocery store in Germany we pulled into a vineyard in the town we stayed and enjoyed prosciutto and mustard in a tube sandwiches and the bottle wine from the morning. The air was refreshing as the sky moved toward dusk and again in the car toward our next destination, the highest peak in Switzerland, Dourforspitze. Between the dark night in the heart of the Swiss Alp, the constant concentration staying on the windy road, the pace the occasional Europeans would pass, and the lack of sleep, after a few hours I had to stop to find a place to sleep for the night. In a small town that I cannot remember, I backed up to a small building next to the road in the dead of night, reclined the seat and fell quickly to sleep.Head to Dufourspitze in Switzerland
