Schwarzwald

All those who have not yet finished with winter after this messed-up corona season and the Spanish February with its firn tours will now be rewarded by Ullr for their loyalty.

The Black Forest has turned completely white with snow this winter. And so all the inhabitants took to their hilly homes and completely forgot where they were because of all the powder and pillows, and the pandemic was only half as wild. Great cinema from a small low mountain range!

With the thaw of the last few days, the fantastic winter landscape in the Black Forest has unfortunately been washed away for the time being. For over a month, the conditions - apart from a brief warm period - were almost Canadian. At least the fir trees looked like deep snow-covered Sitka spruces in Canada the whole time. And the snow quality was most reminiscent of North America, but certainly not of the Black Forest - synonyms such as "Baden Columbia" or "Little Canada" were heard again and again.

In the words of the German Chancellor: "We're breaking new ground!" And I'm not talking about the internet, but about Alarm 8, because this time Ullr isn't sending us cold and snow all the way down, but a partially warm alarm with a fluctuating snow line.

Everyone rubs their eyes in amazement - what is this? Bright colors on the north side of the Alps? Is it a UFO, is it a Marvel superhero? No, it's a northern traffic jam!

Ullr likes it comfortable and leaves the powder machine in the same setting as last time, we already know it. One man's joy, the Northern Alps' sorrow: there's another südstau.

The second article in the Anno dazumal series was also written by Henry Hoek. In the first part of Ten Winters with Skis in the Mountains from 1910, Hoek tells us more about his first attempts "with the narrow boards that give us such a healthy feeling of happiness" in the Black Forest and why they were "anything but encouraging and enjoyable".