3 Days on the Hochschwab

I have just returned from a three week internet (and Austria) absence. Hopefully, more on that soon! But first, time to briefly recount the three day hiking trip that I had, more or less, been training for the whole summer with all those other hikes detailed in the pages of this 'web log'. The reason I even felt I had to get fitter at all had less to do with the fact that the hike was planned to be three days and more to do with the fact that I knew my very good friend William was coming over from Norway (where his PhD is, he is a New Zealander and thus more given to saying 'bid' for 'bed', etc than fits of nordicness). Anyhow, I was aware he has been known to run more than one marathon in his time, and thus thought it best not to disappoint. Nicely though in the end we ended up a bigger group with William's brother and a group of Austrians and a Dutch person the brother had met while travelling south america...

When the call went out for routes I got very excited, bought several maps and eventually identified the broad concept of the route we ended up taking, which was very nice, though i relied on the locals for finesse and hut booking.

The hike took place over a weekend with forecasted highs of 38 degrees in Vienna, and boy were we glad to (somewhat) dodge that! After a friday afternoon bus and train journey down to the northern edge of Styria, we headed up into the majestic forest of limestone cliffs to find our first hut just as sunset was painting the mountains gold then violet. Not going to lie, I was pretty happy with this bit of the walk! Cool late afternoon temperatures, quiet paths, mountains and a sunset. Fantastic! Reaching the hut at 1600m (we started around 900 or so) we settled into the big dorm room for the night. This is just a big, mattress filled room, so little privacy and there is always a snorer, but if you are rising at 6am like us you need all the help you can get to get up!

The hut had no water to offer, and even filtered drinking water had to be bought, and was not free. This was due to the weeks and weeks of dry weather that preceded our hike. Indeed until we reached the bottom of the valleys on the 3rd day we did not see any sign of running water other than still preserved snow, slowly dripping into sinkholes and feeding the lower valley streams.

Day two began with the aformeentioned early start to dodge the worst of the heat on the 700m climb up to our goal, the summit of the Hochschwab, 2100 ish metres. This part of the walk was hot and sweaty in the sun, but still cool in the shade, and once we reached 2000m the path spent a pleasant while winding between lesser peaks without major height change before the final brief push to the top. After the breathtaking view came a hot descent, getting hotter with every metre dropped and with every minute as we headed into the afternoon, hottest part of the day. After a hot time walking through and amazing boulder strewn valley we reached waterless hut number two.

Day three was an uncomplicated descent, begun with an impressive sunrise and a nice walk in the morning light. As the day wore on and we got lower down the heat again became hard to bear, and once we left the mountains we decided to taxi it back to the train. This proved a good thing as the bus wasn't running and the direct road to the station was closed due to clearup from a recent storm!

All in all a wonderful 3 days, tackling a nice long stretch and ending up somewhere different to where you started are both things I had been missing from my hiking, and it was a great bunch to share it with.

I took a lot of photos, but I have narrowed it down to the best eighteen for your viewing pleasure (or I hope pleasure, at least).

Der Tom