Blog Posts in Category: Austria

Tegelberg to Farchant XC Paragliding

On the second day at Tegelberg I had planned to fly east after take off, through the Ammergebirge and then with the aim of seeing how far east I could fly, as this would give me an easy journey back to Munich. Unfortunately as per the previous day, the day took a very long time to get going at Tegelberg which meant that I didn’t launch until 14:20. Thankfully after this late launch I was able to take a good thermal up through the invasion layers to well above the summit. At this point I abandoned my plan as the clouds to the east didn’t look very good, but the clouds to the south did. As I vaguely knew how a number of different flight areas/mountain ranges joined up, I decided to head south and see how it went. The initial part of the flight was very scenic, although with some slow climbs due to shaded out ground, and it was really special to be able to fly over the Plansee and along to Lermoos with absolutely fantastic views. Unfortunately the Gartner Wand was completely shaded out at this point,. Read the full article…

Breitebenkopf

We decided to do a there and back route up the Breitebenkopf as we could walk there from the campsite. We started with a 2.5km walk along the road into the Seidlwinkltal before starting our ascent. From the start it was clear this wasn’t a popular route as the ascent was very overgrown, and it was also very steep. The steepness combined with the brutal heat made this very hard work. On the map there was a walking path which made its way directly up the mountain and an old zig-zag forest road, which looked even more overgrown than our path, however eventually we emerged to find the overgrown forest road had turned into a newly made stone forest track. So at this point we decided to leave the official walking track and take the much longer, but much less brutal forest track up to the end of the forest. From here we left the stone path and again joined an old track and then a very unworn path up the spur towards the Weichselbachhöhe. This became increasingly steep towards the top, and we were certainly glad when the summit. Read the full article…

Krumltal/Tal der Geier

With afternoon thunderstorms forecast and after two days of walking with more than 1300m of ascent, we decided that a rest day was in order. We decided to do a short walk up the Krumltal to the Bräualm for lunch. The valley is best known for the birds of prey, where it is common to see Griffon Vultures, Bearded Vulture and Golden Eagles. What we didn’t realise is that it was also a really beautiful valley which was full of enormous waterfalls. On our walk into the hut we enjoyed admiring the landscape and the waterfalls, and saw what we believe to be a number of Griffon Vultures. We soon arrived at the beautifully situated farm where the Bräualm was situated, where we enjoyed a lunch of their homemade bread and cheese, with meat from their animals. All of this while overlooking the valley where we were watching Bearded Vultures flying, thankfully someone at the hut let us use their binoculars to fully appreciate the birds. On the way out we saw a number of Marmots which I was particularly pleased about, and then just as we were about to. Read the full article…

Grubereck

Grubereck is the first high mountain on the eastern side of the Rauris valley which meant that despite its relatively modest height would have excellent views to the north, south and west. We didn’t start as early as we would have liked, as the first bus on the weekend was surprisingly late, which meant we had a very hot ascent up to the peak. Initially on the ascent we had fleeting views over alpine meadows looking north into the larger mountains towards the end of the Rauristal on the way up to the Bründlalm. From here the ascent became very steep and relentless, but we eventually emerged out onto the grassy summit ridge where the views really opened up and became really enjoyable. We were shocked to arrive at the summit and find a very civilised bench with a table, which made it an obvious spot for some lunch, it was just a shame about the flies due to the lack of wind. From the summit we descended to the Karalm, where I was really looking forward to a stop for a cold drink and maybe some cake, however we. Read the full article…

Rauris Ridge

I planned this walk back in spring, but for various reasons we had not got around to doing it. Given the day before a 4 day weekend in Germany was forecast to be perfect weather, we decided to extend the weekend and take the Friday off as well. There were two options for this walk, the first from the valley with more ascent, but less descent, or the second from the lift station, with less ascent but more descent. We decided to do the ascent from the valley, which was certainly hot in the morning sun. The route took us from Hundsdorf, up to the Roßkopf and then up to the Baukogel which was the start of the ridge. The ridge then took us over Hirschkopf and Reißrachkopf before finishing at Schwartzwand. The ascent up to Roßkopf was initially on a track before moving onto a not very well trodden path up through grassy meadows, which was a lovely ascent. As we climbed the views were getting better and better, and in very good time we were at Roßkopf where we quickly ate most of our lunch. From the Roßkopf. Read the full article…

Roter Stein

We had planned to climb Daniel, but given the lack of wind forecast and the high temperatures, decided that a large day fully spent on a south facing slope may have been a bit unpleasant, so we diverted to climb another mountain which has been on my todo list for a while, the Roter Stein which started from Berwang. The route was a there and back route, which took us up a beautiful valley before climbing steeply up to a spur of the Roter Stein which then took us to the summit. The walk up the valley in the morning was hot, with absolutely no wind, baking sunshine and ascent. There was also surprisingly still some snow, but it was almost impossible to detect as snow as it was covered with tree debris, so it only looked like snow when you really looked at it hard and from the side. As we climbed out of the valley three things happened, firstly as we left the lush green valley the humidity dropped, secondly we were greeted by a welcome breeze and thirdly the views started to open up. The views kept. Read the full article…

Ehrwald Bergfeuer

We decided to stay in Ehrwald due to our plans for the morning, but little did we know that we had decided to camp on one of the busiest nights of the year, to to the annual Bergfeuer event. Thankfully we managed to find a nice campsite who allowed us to squeeze in for the night, before heading out to join the festivities. It was all a bit crazy with the roads being full with lots of „interesting“ parking, parking in random farmers fields and just generally stopping wherever it was just about possible to stop. Thankfully we found somewhere to park which wasn‘t so silly, and joined the crowds admiring the mountain fires. We were really surprised by how detailed some of the designs were, given that they were being created by fire on the side of the mountain. It was really interesting to watch them grow from the initial flames into the full designs.

140km XC from Wallberg to Radstadt

With an excellent lapse rate, low winds at valley level but with strong winds up high, combined with a high cloudbase, I was cautiously optimistic that I was going to complete my first >100km flight. The route I planned at the following sections: I had flown a number of the sections successfully before, and had attempted a number of others, which put me in a great position to use previous knowledge. I had previously successfully flown 1-3 and 5, and had attempted 3 and 6 previously which had given me useful knowledge to improve on this time. Despite the great forecast, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to complete the route as I thought that in the afternoon the thermals may become too turbulent due to the midsummer sun, 0.9 deg/100m lapse rate and strong wind up high. Thankfully this didn‘t turn out to be the case, and I successfully complete the flight landing at Radstadt as planned. The flight itself was wonderful, I spent most of the time over 1000m above the summits admiring the wonderful views, enjoying the strong climb and being blown along the route. Read the full article…