Away from it All - Christmas in a self-sufficient mountain Cabin.
January 11, 2025
Christmas Eve in a log cabin in the snowy mountains. Is it okay to be this romantic? Yes, it is! For over 10 years, I have had this dream. And now we've done it! Mountain peaks and evergreen trees outside the window, candles on the table, a cup of tea in hand, a wood-burning stove in the corner. No fancy five-star chalet, no hotel room in the valley, no other guests. Just my hubby and me tucked far away in a simple self-serve mountain hut. Oh night devine!
”Is the snow boiling yet?” I shout deep and hollow from the well shaft, as my glove drops to the ground and is instantly soaked with icy slush. Great! The temperature dropped to 17°F last night and the pipes leading to our well outside are frozen. That means no water.
All you have to do is pour two kettles of hot water on the pipe, then it should start working again, texts our landlord on WhatsApp from the valley far below. At least we have a weak cell phone signal if I walk close enough to the outhouse. Unfortunately, we don't have any water, let alone hot water. But luckily there was eight inches of fresh snow, which we are now melting and boiling on the wood stove.
We're spending a week in the Bavarian Alps over Christmas in a cabin dating back to 1870, on a mountain pasture at almost 4,000 feet above sea level. No Wi-Fi, no running water in the house, no shower, no nearby supermarket, a small well on the porch, a small solar panel on the roof that is constantly covered with snow, a wood-burning cook stove for heat as well as cooking, and over an hour's walk to the car in the valley. Up here for a week—with snowstorms, challenges, incredible sunrises, glorious weather, and the best Christmas I've ever had. Ready for the ascent?
The fountain and the ice
“Can you quickly google what else you can do to get the ice out of the pipes?” I shout from the shaft.
“I have almost no battery left. Is the solar panel on the roof free again?” my husband calls from inside as he crams another log into the oven to melt the snow faster.
I climb out of the well and go and have a look. “Nope. Three tons of snow. Whatever.”
After taping two brooms together and climbing onto a wobbly chair to sweep the stupid panel free of the blanketing snow, I realize that my jury-rigged contraption doesn't even remotely reach the solar panels. I would have to climb all the way up onto the roof. I have to laugh. I'm not going to break my leg when I am an hour's walk away from civilization just to google some info that people in 1870 couldn't google either.
Instead, we spend another two hours collecting snow, thawing and boiling it, pouring hot water from kettles onto the pipes, and waiting around. As I take a short break to hang my wet clothes on the wooden bar hanging above the stove, I hear a loud exclamation from outside: “Water!”
“Really now?” I shout in disbelief and almost run out in my socks.
Ice-cold, crystal-clear water is shooting out of the well pipe. Liquid. Flowing! We dance and shout. I feel almost drunk because it's so cool to be happy about something as simple as water.
Less than a hundred years ago, even Europeans were living like this. My grandma had a well too. What a fantastic luxury we have now, and yet we have almost no appreciation for it. I think of the people we met in Nepal and Namibia who couldn't even dream of having clean running water anywhere near their house.
Cabin magic with candles, cookies and a book
As it gets dark, we light candles. A deep warmth emanates from the stove. The wood crackles softly. We cook pesto pasta. With a stove that you cannot set to “five” or “medium”—but only to “lots of wood”, “some wood” and “little wood”. Everything takes longer. Cooking, washing dishes outside in the snow using the stone tub, warming the stove in the morning after it goes out in the middle of the night...
Only showering is quicker. Standing at a washbasin with soap, washcloths, and water heated on the stove. Yuck? Nonsense. That's how people had washed themselves for centuries. I'm amazed at how refreshed I feel and how little water I've used compared to a shower.
Then we snuggle on the wooden bench by the stove as we cover our legs with a fluffy woolen blanket. My husband reads to me from the Pettson and Findus Christmas book. We read this book aloud every year. Perhaps because Pettson is a lot like my husband and I'm a bit like Findus the cat, which always leads to amusement and interruptions. In addition to a week's worth of food, we also brought homemade Christmas cookies and a small tabletop Christmas tree. And my Ikea gnome. No discussion about that! Our cell phones are often turned off. Not only to conserve power, but also because we'd rather play board games, go hiking, or simply look out of the window at night at the glittering city far below.
Snowed in on Christmas Eve
It snows like crazy on Christmas Eve. All day long. I keep going out and shoveling snow so we can continue to get out the door. “White Christmas” keeps going around in my head, and I want to sing it out loud. Nobody else hears it anyway.
Wait, what's that over there? Two chamois, European goat-antelopes, suddenly appear on the slope in front of our house, scratching in the snow for grass. I become very quiet and just watch them through the window. So beautiful. Soon, we see an ermine scampering in the snow.
In the evening, we eat potato salad we had cooked earlier that day,—so very German!—listen to
some previously downloaded Christmas music on my cell phone, and for which I had saved battery power just for this occasion. We also drink another German treat:
Kinderpunch, a non-alcoholic children's punch.
“And why are people getting mad at this?” my husband asks doubtfully as I set up the game board for “Mensch-Ärgere-Dich-Nicht“ or “Man, Don’t Get Mad.” My husband has never played it. It's not popular in the USA. And where better to play board games than while snowed in at a mountain cabin on Christmas Eve. I recall an incident in my childhood, when I once threw the game board against the living room wall, bright red in the face. I think I've always been a bit impulsive.
When my husband runs his game piece all the way around the board to its target and I knock it back to start, he looks at me. “What's that?! That stinks!” he mumbles, upset. I grin.
But he couldn't really say anything. After all, he had three Yahtzees in a gamble game earlier in the afternoon and I didn't even have one.
Great weather and Tears on Christmas
The sky is totally clear on Christmas Day. So clear that I almost slip on ice at three o'clock in the morning on my way out to the outhouse, as I see the millions of stars in the night sky. Dude, you usually only see that in places like the Namib Desert or New Zealand. But a night sky like this in Germany? Wooow!
And then we are up for the sunrise. I run like a scurrying chipmunk through the powder snow up the slope in a 12°F temperature for a better view of the Alpine peaks and the cabin. At first, the sky is bluish-purple and my face freezes like Walmart broccoli. But then the top of the mountain peaks begin to glow. Orange, red, pink. “Aaahahaha, what's that?” I foolishly shout, because it feels as if this isn't real. Are we really in the mountains in the snow on Christmas Day and seeing alpenglow from our log cabin? This must be a dream. While I'm still laughing out loud, I suddenly realize I'm crying at the same time.
The best thing about it all is that my husband and I are able to experience it all together after his crappy cancer diagnosis two years ago. The statistics gave him only two more years at best. And now he's not only here, but he’s also hiking with me to mountain pastures, peaks, and dreams.
Out of sheer joy, I sculpt a snow squirrel on our terrace. And then it's out onto the trail for us. Out and away. Where life lies and we continue to do all the things we've always wanted to do.
If you like, you can follow our stories, travels, fails and adventures daily on Instagram: @squirrel.sarah.
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