It took the trio a while to find the hot pool. Rachel couldn't see Sankt Blasien down through the clouds to guide her. After a few false leads and a return to the top, she remembered how they had initially found it. "We were traversing across the side of the ridge and stopped in a rib of trees by a small stream for a drink. The water was warm. We followed the stream up the hill, feeling it get warmer."

She paused to think. "The stream disappeared above a small pool. Edom looked up the gully and thought it too deep not to have water farther above. We followed the gully upward and found another small pool of even warmer water ten metres or so higher. Another five metres higher was a large deep pool of water a few degrees above body temperature. A few metres farther up was the top of the gully. The water coming out of the rocks was much too hot."

Rachel looked at the map again. "It's about a third of the way down toward Sankt Blasien from the rounding of the ridge — it's only a hundred metres or so in elevation down the treed rib."

"Do you recognise the place on the ridge where we need to head down?" David asked.

"I can't tell now that we're back down into the clouds. Edom always led the way to it. When it was clear, we used the copper dome of the church. It's hard to miss — it's one of the largest domes in Europe. My father said only Saint Peter's in Rome and the Duomo in Florence are bigger. I can't see it, nor can I see the rock outcrop to lead us down."

"Do you think we're near the line?"

"I'm sure we're within two hundred metres one side or the other."

"Let's head back up along the ridge three hundred yards or so and descend a hundred metres from there, then spread out down the slope and walk back along parallel to the line of the ridge top."

As they descended through a steep meadow, Rachel said, "This is right, there's a meadow on each side of the forested rib." They turned, spread out and soon entered the forest. A few minutes in, they came to a small gully with cold water. They confirmed up and down the slope that the water was cold all the way along. Less than ten metres farther along, Rachel shouted, "Warm water! We've got warm running water." She climbed a few metres. "We're here. Here's the big pool."

Maria quickly descended to the spot, dropped her pack and was nearly undressed by the time David had made his way back up the slope. She followed Rachel into the pool, looking back at him and saying with a giggle, "You're the last one in again."

They sat up to their shoulders and soaked. "Doesn't have the smell of sulphur like the one in Banff," he said. "Doesn't have the luxury hotel either, but it will do just fine. Where did you set-up your camp?"

"There's a pretty little grove a short distance across there." Rachel pointed to their left. "Midway between the hot and cold running water. This is such a delightful spot. I haven't been here for many years, since before we moved from Unterhallau ten years ago. Long before that, you hadn't yet started school. We needed a break from you kids," she said, looking at Maria and smiling.

"We're only about two hundred metres above Sankt Blasien, an ancient town, said to be over a thousand years old. A monastery is how it started."

"People below must surely know about this place, it's so near."

"No Sweetheart, I don't think so. We never saw anyone here, never any signs of others having visited. It's up a rugged slope with much gentler terrain on both sides. The hot stream runs into the cold one after only twenty-five or thirty metres. It's an easy place to miss. Besides, they have a thermal down in the town and another one a short distance along the valley in Menzenschwand."

"I'm getting hot," David said, after a twenty-minute soak. "I'll head across to go sort out how to set-up camp."

"It's almost straight across the slope, impossible to miss. It will shout to you as you approach."

"I'll come help you. You stay here and relax, Mama, your joints and muscles are older than ours."

David and Maria put on their shoes and shirts, put trousers over their arms, picked up the four packs and headed across the slope less than ten yards to a flat expanse of moss between two huge stumps and a moss-covered log. They set the packs down, and he was already well up as she turned to kiss him. After a brief hug, he laid her on the moss, knelt and ran his tongue up the inside of her thigh, up past her blond patch, circled her navel and ran it back along the other thigh, then back up and paused in the middle to get more tongue practice.

Maria shortly erupted, and as her twitching calmed and she regained a more regular breathing, she said, "Inside, David, please come inside. I'm still very safe."

"We did that too," Rachel said quietly a quarter hour later, after she had watched them shudder together and then collapse limply into the moss. "We couldn't pause even to pitch the tent the first time we saw this place. That became our arrival ritual."

"Been watching long, Mama?" Maria asked, a little out of breath.

"Long enough to know you're both very happy with this place." She shuddered. "Oh, how I remember my times here with Edom." She shook her head. "Let me get you some cottons."

"I'm thinking the tent might be the best shelter, the warmest. Is it big enough for the three of us?" David asked.

Maria giggled. "We don't need much space at all, not the last few nights, anyway. But there's ample room in it for three less friendly people. The five of used to sleep in it."

"I can slant the canvas above the tent from these two old logging stumps. It will make a good rain shed if needed. This is amazingly comfortable moss."

"We cleared the stones from the bed, pulled out two big roots, added more moss and levelled it. During each visit, we improved it. I'm delighted to see it has lasted so well."

Rachel began unpacking as David and Maria lay entangled, connected and lightly panting, still coming down. She had the sailcloth tent unrolled, had the bundled lines sorted and was looking at the sections of wooden poles. "I'll leave this for you to figure out, David. Edom always did it for us. It still looks confusing to me. I'll continue unpacking."

It was surprisingly warm as they started stirring from their slump. "The cloud bottoms have lifted above us now," he said. "The air is much less damp and the clouds are holding the earth's heat in."

"We're also about four hundred metres lower than we were up on the shoulder of Feldberg," Rachel said.

"Conrad used a rule of six and a half European degrees per thousand metres. He had to convert it for his clients when he started guiding in Canada. We use feet and different degrees there, like the English. In dry air, the change is greater than in damp."

David had started dressing through the conversation while Maria continued to sit and drain onto the small cotton towel. He looked at the two large pieces of cloth, shifted and flipped them, examined the lines, picked up the thick dowelling pieces, studied the brass fittings on their ends, then looked around the small grove.

"Maria had mentioned a piece of painted canvas, Mama. A moisture cover for the ground."

"I've just now pulled it out," Rachel held it out to him. "Have you sorted out the puzzle?"

"I think I see it." Then he added with a chuckle, "But it will quickly tell me if I'm wrong." He turned toward Maria and said as he bent to kiss her, "Move your beautiful butt, you're sitting in the middle of a construction zone."

They spread the sheet, threaded the brass fittings together, placed pole ends into the cloth pockets and erected one end of the tent. He took the line from the ridge and tied it to a root while Maria held the pole. He took one of the two corner lines, put a peg through its loop and pushed it into the soft forest floor, then he repeated with the other corner. "That's one end. How does this look, Mama?"

Rachel paused and looked over at it. "Everything looks good from here. That's how I remember it during the process."

They erected the other end, adjusted and tensioned the guys, adding stronger anchors for some of them. By the time they had strung up the oiled canvas as a rain shed, Rachel had sorted the cooking utensils and the food and had a large billy of water on the Primus about to come to a boil.

David looked at his watch. "It's 1605, five past four," he said. "Still quite early. I'll lay out the bedrolls, then we can have tea. A few minutes late for the British. After that, I'm going for another soak."

As they sipped tea from their mugs and nibbled on Munster, Gruyère, knäckebrot and dried fruit, David studied the map and snaked a strip of his notebook paper along it. "With our twists and bends as we followed the contours, we came about eighteen kilometres today," he reported. Then he looked back at the map as the girls watched, quiet in their thoughts.

A minute and a half later, he continued, "The straight line distance to the border is a little under twenty-one kilometres. The safer line which follows mostly through the trees is a little over twenty-three, gradually descending about five hundred metres."

"So a day will easily put us on the rocky rib above the border," Rachel said. "We'll be in Switzerland on Wednesday."

"Let's concentrate on being here," he said. "We can concentrate on Switzerland when we get there. Being safe where we are, being aware of what's around us is the important thing."

Maria looked around slowly and said, "Anyone coming along this rocky, broken rib instead of following the easy slopes would have to be either stupid or hiding or know of the hot spring."

"We fit two of those categories," David said, and added with a chuckle, "Maybe even all three. This is my second closest approach to Switzerland. My closest was much too close. We must be alert."

As they finished their tea, David asked Rachel to describe what she remembered of the terrain. She started by saying it was a long time ago since she was last here and tried to remember when. She talked of gentle forested ridges to cross, of shallow valleys, open meadows and fields, of grazing cattle, of small farms and tiny villages.

Rachel took the map sheet and ran her finger across it, digging back through her mind as she did. "Here, this rib, it's untamed on top, broken and rocky, offers great cover very close to the border. We need to get to the top of this..." She paused, looked up, "That was 1901. We sat on the top of the ridge and talked of Queen Victoria's passing and of the new King Edward."

"I would have been five then," Maria said with wide eyes.

"No, four and a half, you weren't five until September."

They finished tea and David gathered all the food into a rucksack, tossed a line up through the crotch in a small hardwood. He thought maybe an ash, then he hoisted the pack about ten feet up and tied the end of the line to the trunk.

Maria and Rachel had looked on, quietly watching until he had nearly finished. "An offering for the gods?" Maria asked.

"No, protection from hungry forest animals. This is a routine practice at home in the mountains. Bears can't climb small trees, wolves can't jump that high, we may be visited by an extremely adventurous squirrel... To the bath."

They soaked, hauled out to cool and pleasure, soaked some more and repeated the cycle a couple of times before heading back toward camp, completely relaxed.

"Isn't this a marvellous place?" Rachel asked. "I'm so glad... Fuuuu..." She stumbled and grabbed David's arm for support.

"What is it?"

"My ankle. Rock turned underfoot. Hadn't laced my boots. Hope it's not broken again."