Day 1 Thursday
Johannes and I headed to Austria for a mix of things. Actually, we’d planned to head there for ski touring. The things were mixed though due to the unreliable snow conditions. Not so much that the condition of the snow was bad, more that there wasn’t any to speak of. I’d arrived by the unreliable and uncomfortable Deutsche Bahn on Wednesday evening and on Thursday we drove from Munich towards the Austrian border. We’d already opted for a bike ride before we left and had even planned out a bit of a route. Our bike ride started just across the border in Erl. I had my (Amber’s) old Kona mountain bike that I’d most recently used in Norway with Leonie in 2016. Johannes had his Canyon gravel bike. An uneven playing field.
It turns out the route we’d planned was quite steep. It had looked hilly but it climbed 850 vertical metres with just a few flatter sections. The sun was shining and I felt overdressed in my long sleave cycling jersey. There was very little traffic and the road climbed up sometimes with open fields on each side and sometimes through patches of forest. Very pretty. The top of the climb left us at a couple of mountain huts. One was closed and the other delivered an apfelschorle for me and an alcohol free weizen for Johannes. There was a nice view out to the mountains to the South. We supped our beverages and contemplated things that needed contemplating, which wasn’t awfully much. Very nice.
We’d planned a loop rather than an out-and-back and we descended behind the hut on a gravel road that took us down and then around the side of the hills. It turned more into a track and then very much more into a track and we carried our bikes for a bit before joining another gravel road. There were patches of snow, not enough to ski tour but enough for us to have to push our bikes through it occasionally. There was nobody else on the small forest road and we began to descend steeply into the valley. The last few kilometres were slightly down and through the forest until we popped back out onto the main sealed road that we’d ridden up. Another steep descent and we were at the car. A short drive further into Austria and we were at our Air BnB in Voldöpp, which Johannes liked to call Volldepp.
Day 2 Friday
We decided to try another bike tour as the weather was a bit marginal for much else and the snow was still missing. A small road took us 20 minutes back into the hills away from the main valley where we parked Johannes’ slowly rusting black Passart. It was colder than the day before and after a few minutes I stopped on the bridge at the entrance of the Kaiserklamm to pull on some more clothes. We followed a deserted forestry road with a couple of small climbs followed by a longer decent before taking a left and beginning to ascend steeply. It got colder as we ascended and we picked our way around a large forestry truck with crane that was busy throwing large logs around. It continued to get colder until there were snowdrifts on the road and as we reached the top of the climb we were reduced to pushing our bikes through snow. We followed a line up along a track through forest to avoid some of the snow, across a snowy creek, more pushing through the snow, and we were at the top. It began to rain very lightly so we pulled on our jackets under cover next to a little hut. The “road” took us down except there wasn’t any road just snow and the route on my Garmin to follow. For a bit there was enough snow to ski tour on but it was heavy and wet and wouldn’t have been any fun.
We continued down. There was more snow on this side of the hills but eventually it vanished and we ceased the continual jumping off and pushing. We descended into a narrow valley almost like a ravine. There were large cliffs to our left and a river on our right. It was quite nice and would have been even nicer had the weather been a bit better. After some kilometres of coasting we had one slight uphill and then another short descent back to the car. A successful ride. We headed back to the Air BnB to laze about.
Day 3 Saturday
The weather forecast had predicted rain, doom and gloom but it was sunny in the morning and so we decided to make the most of it and try a via ferrata. The one nearby was apparently closed so instead we drove to Zillertal. I watched in dismay as we left the sunshine and drove into grey but was pleasantly surprised again when we drove out the other side back into sunshine. The Talbacher waterfall ferrata was ok. It had a few harder sections and a couple of long and quite wobbly rope bridges. It didn’t take too long to do and then we drove back towards our Air BnB stopping for a döner at some place that was highly rated on Google. It was acceptable. We went to check out the Reintalersee ferrata near our accommodation. It was indeed closed as the sign at the bottom of the track suggested. We headed up anyway to the base of the cliffs, climbing perhaps 150 m. Yes, it was definitely closed. Closed in a, “we’ve removed the rope so you don’t get tempted” kind of way. Our temptation to do it faded. Johannes had warned me that if I wanted to become a real German with a real German passport, I’d have to start acting like a German, which in this context meant obey signs that say things are closed. He’d, of course, been acting quite un-German himself.
Day 4 Sunday
Determined not to have brought our skis with us for no reason we drove towards Innsbruck and then up into the mountains to Praxmar. It was sunnier than expected and snowy. Both good things. We parked in the crowded car park in the last remaining spot and ferried our gear out to the side away from the muddy puddle we’d parked in. We weren’t the only ones who’d planned to go ski touring. Joining the crowds we began to skin up the hill. We made good progress and after a couple of hours we reached the ski depot at the top of Lampsenspitze. We’d passed a bunch of people on our ascent despite Johannes claiming he was unfit. Although we’d started in sunshine with nice views of green forest in the valley and snow in the hills, the sun had been replaced with high cloud. That was ok. The snow wasn’t going to be amazing either. It was nice all the same to be out on tour, something that is very rare this season due to my long trip to New Zealand.
We decided we couldn’t be bothered walking to the summit from the ski depot and instead started our descent. The snow as ok but was a bit lumpy and hard on the (old) knees. We stopped after every few turns for a break and opted for the cat track further down. Back at the car we packed up and headed drove back to Munich.
A surprisingly good weekend given the weather forecast and the randomness of it all.
As we all know if it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen…
