Day 26 Villach

We survived our night in the primitive Schultzhutte without any ill effects despite the interesting smell of mouse droppings on my pillow. The view from the window was stunning, a lovely clear night with a distinct view of the Milky Way above and the lights from Villach at the bottom of the valley below.

Schultzhutte

Day 25 Feistrizter Alm

There were clear signs today that the walk was beginning to fizzle out. The scenery was less dramatic and the number of other walkers dropped, despite wonderful weather and the fact that it was the weekend. At lot of Germans on the Hohnweg don't seem to bother with the last two days.

In terms of the Via Alpina schedule, today's walk combined two stages and was a big day 30 kilometres long with 1500 metres of climb. The target was the Schultzhutte at Feistrizter Alm, a hutte I hadn't been able to contact until at the last minute before we left Nassfeld the receptionist at the hotel managed to book it for us. We knew it was going to be small and remote.

The eastern Karnischer Alps are not as high as the western, everything is about 500 metres lower and as a consequence much of our route was through trees. There has been very little tree walking on this trip and it made a change to have the views so limited. You had to concentrate more on the navigation as well as the route has occasionally been destroyed by forestry work. The GPS trail on the IPhone saved us several times today.

Looking back to Egger Alm

Day 24 Nassfeld

What a difference a day makes, woke up stomach back to normal and ready to face the Austrian diet.

Zollnersee Hütte

Day 23 Zollnersee Hutte

Writing this a day late because last night I was feeling far too sorry for myself to blog. My dodgy stomach, rumbling in the background for a couple of days, was as bad as it could be with all the symptoms which need no description. I completed the walk (just) but it was not much fun.

Untere Valentinalm

Day 22 Untere Valentinalm

Christine doesn't like staying in huttes but accepts them as a necessary evil if you want to enjoy this style of walking. I had argued that the amazing locations, the sense of sharing the experience with other walkers, meant that the huttes added to the enjoyment of the holiday. Last night the balance of the argument shifted in Christine's favour.

Hochweissteinhaus

Day 21 Hochweissteinhaus

Definite improvement on the weather today, so much so that by early afternoon I was wearing shorts. I didn't see anyone else wearing shorts, and even I had gloves on, but the weather was less bad as the day went on.

Just past Bärenbadegg

Day 20 Neue Porze Hutte

Weird weather, cloudy on one side of a hill and clear on the other, misty but windy as well. Occasional dramatic views when the light improves but the weather is spoiling what would otherwise be an amazing walk.

Most of the people in the hutte this morning were walking the Carnic Way and on a similar schedule. So today everyone left between 8 and 9 and everyone was heading for Neue Porze Hutte.

Pfannspitz

Day 19 Obstansersee Hutte

I lay awake early this morning listening to water running outside, trying to convince myself it wasn't raining. Of course it was and the weather forecast for the next four days is bad. Depressing, but neither of us formulated the obvious conclusion and suggested heading for home. Somehow we assumed there was no choice but to go on.

Only a six hour walk today and we decided to hang around as long as possible just in case the weather improved. The notes on the Via Alpina website suggested catching the lift up the side of the valley, advice we were more than happy to accept although Paul preferred the challenge of a the steep walk up.

Drei Zinnen

Day 18 Sexton

Looking down from the Bödenalpe

Today promised to be one of the best days of the whole trip but the dreadful weather turned it into more of an endurance test.

Day 17 Durrensteinhutte

From today there are three of us - we have been joined by Paul Agius from Spain who is going to walk with us for the rest of the trip.

Not an auspicious start for the new enlarged group, poured with rain all day and we decided we would have to modify our route. Real shame because Christine and I were looking to visiting the Lago do Braies, the northern starting point for the Alta Via 1, a trip, one of our first, which we did about 10 years ago, (an amazing walk by the way). The forecast was snow above 2,000 metres and nobody seemed to think it was safe to make the trip, much of which is exposed and over 2,200 metres.

Day 16 Antholz Mitteral

Had originally planned to stay in Ahornach but we are now a day behind schedule and the hotel we had booked could no longer find us a room. So yesterday we came down to Sand in Taufers where there were plenty of hotels to choose from.

Gelltalam Meadow

Day 15 Sand in Taufere

Christine's Guest Blog

Apart from a small sting in the tail, my best ever day's high altitude walking.

We left the wonderful Edelrautehutte at 7.45, giving ourselves just a few moments to relish it's location perched on a col - huge east/west views with a glacier hanging over us to the north.

Edelrautehutte

Day 14 Edelrauthutte

Looked out of the window at 6.45 and the weather looked as bad as ever - had we made the wrong decision yesterday? Within minutes however we saw our first glimpse of blue sky and within an hour or so the mist had gone and we had perfect weather for walking - cool and clear.

Descending from Pfitscherjoch Hutte

Day 13 Pfitscherjoch

Stuck at Pfitscherjoch. Had been anticipating bad weather for several days, it arrived today. Heavy rain through the night, thunder lightening, all gone in the morning but very low cloud, cold north wind and visibility down to a few metres.

Big decision in the morning, should we go or should we stay. Not easy, we had a tough walk ahead - my notes said "don't do this walk if you're not sure of the weather" but there was a general exodus from the hutte and staying was not exactly going to be fun. It also meant rearranging our schedule.

We stayed and the weather didn't start to improve until early evening. Had a good rest and luckily this is a very good hutte. I think we did the right thing, better weather tomorrow will provide a full vindication.

Interesting the number of the walkers on a trip that goes from Munich to Venice. Pfitscherjoch is a stop-over on the route and we met a group on the trip last night and there are another two groups on the same trip staying here tonight - surprisingly this is about the half way point.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Day 12 Pfitscherjoch

Just as yesterday was worse than we expected, today was better. It's all about expectation management. We are busy turning tomorrow into a nightmare.

We decided yesterday that getting a bus to Ginzling was a better start than an endless walk up the long valley. That meant staying in Mayrhofen in a fairly luxurious ski hotel at a bargain rate. The only trouble was their internet wasn't working and I was hoping to get onto the Via Alpina web site and go through the itinerary again. It gets a bit complicated over the next few days.

The decision to get a bus was a good one. I'm sure the route from Finkenburg to Ginzling would have avoided the road wherever possible but it's still a long valley bottom walk and there is plenty of that to enjoy after Ginzling.

Easy trail up from Ginzling

Day 11 Finkenberg

Bad day on the walk - sometimes it doesn't work and today was one of them.

Two problems: somehow we had not realised that it was a big walk, we had both somehow concluded that it was a stroll down the hill and, secondly; the weather was bad.

Looking back to Rastkogelhütte

Day 10 Rastkogelhutte

Many thanks for Christine's guest blog describing yesterdays' walk, always nice to have another perspective. In the interests of completeness there are just a few things I'd like to add.


Firstly Christine failed to mention that at the point we emerged from the trees and started along a "precarious" ridge we also started, after 8 days of walking east (for me) to head south. Quite a significant moment; after almost constantly tracking and crossing the border between Germany and Austria we are now crossing Austria and in a few days start to track the border between Austria and Italy.

Christine also failed to mention that the underlying geology has changed transforming the scenery. After days of dry but dramatic limestone landscape, with jagged peaks and cliffs, we are now into a wetter greener terrain with plants and vegetation suited to an acid soil. Looking south its clear that we will soon be back into a limestone landscape. Perhaps we are crossing an older alpine core which has lost its limestone cover through erosion.

The weather has also become more unsettled with afternoon and evening storms, apparently a feature of the Alps in August. These storms are savage and I would hate to get caught in one in an exposed place.

Apart from that I thought that Christine's blog was quite good.

Leaving Kellerjochehutte with its prayer flags

Day 9 Kellerjochhutte

Guest blog from Christine.

Another day another huge climb, but good news is my knee seems better.

Schwaz is nothing to write home about. It's just down the road from Innsbruck but at 600m it's somewhat too low for alpine walking. Stayed in the modern StayingInn Hotel, clean functional and stylish and no dried flowers or gnomes in sight. John managed to find his way out of town without the usual backtracking and soon we were walking through hay meadows up a zig zagging road. This went on for 2 hours then we struck off steeply through trees till we reached a bilberry covered rocky crest with spectacular views. We picked our way precariously along the rocky edge to Gratzenkopf (2069metres) marked by a cross. The weather was blowing up and big clouds were fast approaching so we hurried on along a dramatic rocky path that clung high to the mountainside. On the ridge itself the wind was ferocious.

Climbing up to Gratzenkopf

Day 8 Schwaz

The Falkenhutte was excellent, perfect location and friendly staff (not a universal feature). I'm used to slightly odd arrangements and slept well but Christine, who for the first time had to share a tiny space with six other people, didn't. There was a huge thunder storm and someone shut the window to stop the rattles, it got very hot.

Leaving Falkenhutte

Day 7 Falkenhutte

Day 7 for me, day 1 for Christine, and her first "strike" of the trip; she stopped and wouldn't go any further.

After all the wonderful walking of the last six days, I was worried things were about to fizzle out. Yesterday was dull and the limited research I'd done on today's walk suggested it might be the same; a long walk on a forest trail, a climb over a shallow pass followed by a long trudge down the other side and a final climb up to the Falkenhutte. My information was right but it didn't do justice to the scenery. The second part after the pass was just wonderful. The horizon was a long line of jagged limestone peaks, scree underneath and then open alpine pasture populated with little herds of cows.

Karwendeltal Valley