I resigned myself to taking the train at the ungodly hour of 7.15 am, as this opens up the whole of the area to access by bus. In the end I decided to start from the tiny hamlet of Hinternasswald right on the southwest side of the Rax, the furthest the bus goes up that particular valley. As I and my intrepid companions who had agreed to come with me despite hearing how many vertical meters were involved (1300) climbed out of the bus around 9.30 am, it was already hot. We were looking forward to avoiding another 38 degree day in Vienna in the cool mountains, but when it's that hot, mountains can only do so much.
The route zigzagged up the back of the Schneealpe before joining the Nasskamm, the fantastic ridge joining Schneealpe to the Rax. I had been thinking of making the climb up to Rax from this ridge ever since we descended from the Schneealpe over it in November last year. The stunning views were tempered a little by the unrelenting sun, and things only got more intense as we set off after lunch up the steepest and rockiest section, a semi-Klettersteig or scramble through some incredible limestone scenery on the steep flank of the Rax plateau. Climbing doggedly in full sun on the south face of the mountain, surrounded by bright reflecting limestone, we sweated and cursed our way up to the top. The rest of the hike was easy and pleasant, the scenery unfolding into wide vistas across the plateau and ending with the pleasantly graded descent to Preiner Gscheid, where we were lucky enough to get a hitch to the station just in time for the (air conditioned!) train. Would have been even more pleasant if we hadn't all been half baked by that point, of course!
All in all a great route, but I wouldn't do 1300m up and 1000m down in the middle of a heatwave again, it was over 25 degrees even up at the highest point, 2007m. I am certainly not ruling out an autumn repeat of this one to get the most out of all the views! Please enjoy the photos from the comfort of your probably much cooler homes!
Bis bald,
der Tom
