Hohe Veitsch Hike

Among young Vienna based hikers, one object is highly prized: the car. Given the advantages of bikes and public transport for everday transport around the city, most of us city dwellers, especially the non-natives, do not own one. However, it is in the nature of mountainous regions that they are never perfectly accessible by public transport, and the rare offer of someone with a car opens up exciting possibilities beyond the everyday.

This blogpost reports on one such car-assisted trip to a peak I had not climbed until now. There is a whole chain of biggish mountains heading West from the Schneeberg and the Rax, made of the same tough limestone as those two peaks/plateaus. I had visited all of the major limestone mountains in this row between Schneeberg and the Hochschwab but one, the Hohe Veitsch (between the Hochschwab and the Schneealpe, much closer to the latter). We set off on a beautiful sunny summer morning in June.

After a much-more-rapid-than-the-train journey it was time to hike. Starting off in shady forest we crossed occasional hot stretches of felled trees before reaching a gorgeous flowery meadow with isolated trees. The flowers were definitely the theme of this hike, we seemed to have hit exactly the right time and from that point onward the mountain was always colourful. Skirting the edge of a large ridge to avoid going over it, we climbed a steep saddle and easily made it up to the small summit plateau of the Hohe Veitsch. Sweeping grassland with flowers gives way to distant views of the other limeston peaks in the region, and I had great fun at lunch mentally ticking off all the ones I had been on! Especially nice was the view of the whole Hochschwab massif, which I really love to walk in but have never seen a good overview of from a distance before now. The domed head of the Hochschab itself was prominent, as were the snowfields collected in the nooks and crannies of the 2000m high plateau.

We started back down, thinking to get back to Vienna nice and early. A navigating error led us to miss a hairpin bend and continue heading straight, towards the ridge we had skirted earlier. From the back of the group I was pretty sure this wasn't the way we had planned, but quite honestly, I had been eyeing the ridge enviously all day. We reached it, and agreed to take the high road back to the car. This was absolutely the highlight of the walk, scrambling along the very top of the rocky limestone ridge with fantastic views to each side, and the whole place festooned with alpine flowers and almost no other hikers in sight. A brilliant wrong turn! The walk down to the parking place was more direct than the way there and we made it back for a quick icecream in the hut there, later but also happier than planned!

The photos attempting to capture the magical flowers and views can be located by clicking your manual interface device on this text! Hope you enjoy them and maybe it will inspire you to go outside!

Bis Bald,
der Tom

PS the ridge is called der Wildkamm if anyone wants to check it out themselves!