Austria august 2004

Tips for traveling in Austria:

	Before meeting our friends in the Otztal, Hanneke and I spent four days in the Zillertal, one valley east of the Otztal. We stayed at campsite Edelweiss at the end of the valley. First, we took the cable car from Fulpmes to Kreuzjoch, the Schlick 2000. From there we climbed the Hoher Burgstal (2611m), see photo. The next day we wanted to go summer skiing on the Stubaier Gletscher, but the wetter was still quite cloudy. However, the weather forecast for the next day was very positive. That's why we hiked to a nearby lake, but because of the mist we did not notice our arrival until we almost walked right into the water. The next day we went skiing and it was fun. The weather was very nice and the snow was soft but very nice to make curves in. It felt a little bit like off-piste skiing! The next day we drove to the Ötztal to meet our 5 friends.
	We met our friends Bas, Jeanine, Geert-Jan, Arnold and Hans at the campsite Ötztal Arena Kamp Krismer in Umhausen. This campsite would be our base camp that week. Our first 2-days hike took us to the Erlanger hutte. First, the so called hüttentaxi (Taxi Quaxi) took us half way, so that we could skip the 'boring' part of the hike through the woods. Actually, we took this taxi because we thought that a 1000m climb would we enough for our first day. The Erlanger Hütte (2550m) is a beautiful mountain hut, with great views and a very nice and cold lake nearby. The next morning we walked all the way back to Umhausen. This was quite a long and exhausting descent, partly because the direct route was closed because of forestry activities.
	The next morning, Taxi Quaxi took us to our panoramic breakfast location (photo) at the Kleble alm (1983 m).
	The hike to the Hochstubai hütte was very nice. We passed several beautiful lakes and a lot of snowfields. The blue gentians (photo) were very very blue.
	After a serious climb we arrived at the Hochstubai hütte (3175 m) (photo). The views from this hut were spectacular. The food was less spectacular; a lot of dry rice with some meat. The next morning we tried to descent at the other side. However, the steep track was covered with ice and we decided to go back. We went down following the same route we took up the day before.
	The route back was just as beautiful as the previous day. Of course we had to sledge down a snowfield (photo). When we returned at the Kleble alm, we called taxi Quaxi to take us back to the valley. We drove back to our base camp in Umhausen. The next day we took a day off. That is, we played tennis, swimmed and played soccer up and down the hill against some quite talented local kids. Consequently, this was a pretty exhausting day off.
	The next morning we drove to the nice and peacefull village of Vent (1900 m). This village is a very good starting point for numerous nice hikes. We walked up through the Niedertal towards the Martin-Busch-Hütte (2501 m) where we had lunch. After lunch we climbed further to the Similaun-hutte (3019 m) (photo). This hut at the Italien border is very close to the place where the famous ancient glacier man 'Otzi' was found (click here for a photo of his body). The Similaun hutte was very crowded with noisy Belgians. We couldn't have dinner until 20:30. The Belgians were also very noisy in the dormitories and allowed us just a very short night's rest. The next morning Hanneke and I returned to camp Krismer in Umhausen, while the others hiked to the Hochjoch hospiz (2413 m). The next the we met and went to a restaurant in Umhausen for our last dinner together. The next day, we broke down base camp. The others would drive back to Holland, Hanneke and I would stay another week in Austria.
	The next morningwe drove to Innsbruck and explored this nice town. In the afternoon we took the car to Maurach at the Achensee. We stayed in the Karwendel campsite. After 1 day of relaxing at the lake side we were very bored and missed the high mountains. Therefore, we took the Rofan cable car from Maurach into the Rofan mountains the next morning. We climbed the Hochiss (2299). We descended past the Dalfazalm all the way down back to Maurach. The next day we drove towards the Zillertal. We put up our tent at campsite Mayrhofen close to Mayrhofen and went shopping in the village. The next day, we drove to the artificial Slegeis lake at the end of the Zillertal. We hiked past the Olpererhütte where we ate 'Kaiserschmarren' for lunch and went on towards the Friesenberghaus (2498 m) (picture). The next day we tried to climb the Hohere Riffler, but clouds surrounded the summit, so we returned.
	That afternoon we descended to the Slegeis lake and took the car back to the more populated areas. We stayed one more night at a rainy campsite in the north of Austria (photo) before returning to the Netherlands.