Return to the Hochschwab

You may or more likely may not recall that last year I went on a 3 day hike in the Hochschwab area. It turned out to be a really great hiking route. When my old friend from scouts Dave contacted me about going hiking in the alps, I decided that I didn't want to expend the effort on planning a whole new route, especially seeing how great this walk was the last time. The only change I made was to the first day, extending it from 3 or so hours to a proper days walking, now that we didn't need to set off on the friday afternoon (thanks to one of the 3 bank holidays that follow easter here).

The major difference was that we were hiking the route a lot earlier in the year. This meant much more pleasant cool conditions (though it hit 30 in Vienna while we were up there, we were in the low-mid 20s tops and had lots of cooling snow around). It also meant not all snow had melted yet, which turned out to be more a help than a hindrance.

Day one, typical scenery

We finally got off the bus at around midday on Saturday the 7th of June. The new route began already quite high at 1200m, and the highest point of the first day was a measly 1700m or so. Thus the whole thing was an extremely pleasant walk mostly contouring along the sides of slopes or across limestone plateaus. Up above 1400m there are lots of these, full of little damp clearings, dotted with hoofprints of passing cows, green with grass and in early June bristling with wildflowers and buzzing with insects. In between there are stretches of thin conifer wood, mossier and with much more lichen than you get at ground level. Every so often we would reach a high point, saddle or cliffside where we could look back over the way we had come so far or spy the distant peak of tomorrow's target, the Hochschwab. We arrived at the first hut on time, gobbled down dinner and a few shandys, got down to some serious card playing then all too soon were banished off to bed.

View from the summit

The next 2 days hike followed the route described in the previous blogpost, and with the bright sunny weather the whole thing felt enormously familiar, apart from the snowfields we occasionally had to tramp up and over. The ascent to the Hochschwab summit (2277 m) was tiring but not too difficult, and we were rewarded with the amazing view, enhanced by the patchwork of bright white flecks of unmelted snow visible even on the furthest mountains. The snow was also a huge help on the descent, instead of a monotonous, knee-jarring and steep plod down, we were able to half-run, half-slide ('glissading' you can call it apparently) straight down the snow. We were in the valley in no time, with little or no plod required! And once in the valley we were cooled by the snow, instead of baked. There was even water at the hut to wash with this time!

Perhaps my favourite shot, a distant Dave enters the snow filled valley, compare with the same valley in august...

The final day was a straight descent, followed by a multi hour wait in a completely asleep little alpine village for the bus to the station. Once down out of the mountains everything was really hotting up, and the 30 degree weather once we got back to Vienna really lent a very surreal feeling to the 3 days. Once we were back, it was as if they had occurred in a completely parallel universe...

Hope you enjoy the photos, I have tried to avoid repeating views from last year but inevitably the odd one crept in!!

Till next time,

Der Tom