We have just returned from a day walk with with our local walking club to Enzklösterle in the Black Forest. The club walks regularly attract 70 or 80 participants. We split in two groups, one to do a shorter walk and one for a somewhat longer walk. We chose to do the longer walk at 12km as did about 30 others. It was a great day. The weather was perfect, sunny but cool. We wandered through a chunk of the Black Forest that has been left in its pristine condition. At the end we climbed steeply over a ridge. As the walk progressed our leader started to show problems. He's got heart trouble and has recently suffered from 'flu. He felt very weak climbing the last hill and a first aider went back to check him out. The rest of us waited at the summit wondering what to do. After some time the leader was assisted up the hill and could walk gently to the bus, but the whole episode delayed the rest of us for the better part of an hour. Fortunately could follow the excellent Black Forest Club waymarking, but if this was not there, then we would have had problems, if the leader had not been able to show us the route. We could walk down to our bus and arrived late at the restaurant for lunch. It struck us that the club would be well advised to
- appoint a back up leader for each of the walks so that he or she can take over in case of emergency.
- to distribute mobile phone numbers so that one can communicate with members of one's own party and with the other party to warn the others, the restaurant and/or the emergency services.
We will suggest this to the committee in the coming days.
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