Blog Posts in Category: Austria

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…

Schmittenhöhe Paragliding

There were excellent conditions forecast in the Pinzgau so I took the day off work, hoping to do my first 100km flight. Despite the good conditions forecast in the Pinzgau, I wasn‘t 100% sure what the day would bring, as further north there were very strong winds forecast. I made use of my Deutschlandticket and Austrian Bahncard and travelled to Zell am See by train, which was a very relaxing way of arriving, other than the spring for the bus to the cable car from the Zell am See train station! Conditions after take off were wonderful and I was soon up at altitude and enjoying a brilliant view, there was a northerly wind, but it wasn’t too strong, even when I descended into the lee of it. I made good time to Pass Thurn, however this is where the conditions started to unravel, there was a very strong wind rushing down the valley which gave me a terrible glide to an almost guaranteed thermal source on the other side of the valley crossing. I actually gave up trying to get there as the headwind was so bad, as I. Read the full article…

Volbiv from Stubai to Olang-Antholz

One of my aims this year was to do a VolBiv, which is where you travel from A to B by air with a paraglider, along with a tent and other associated camping equipment. As this was my first VolBiv and I only had 3 days, I had set myself some simple rules to make it easier/more enjoyable: In the week running up to the VolBiv the forecast for Friday-Sunday was very good, with Friday and Saturday looking great and Sunday looking OK, which resulted in me planning a route which started in Stubai with the flying crux on the first day, flying over the Stubai glaciers and the main alpine ridge. Once over the ridge, it should have been plain sailing along the south facing slopes of the Pustertal. I didn‘t have a specific objective, but had planned routes to Lienz and onwards to Spittal an der Drau. The advantage of this route was that there was a trainline all the way along the route after I reached the Pustertal, so getting home on the Sunday would be easy no matter where I finished. I gradually packed my equipment. Read the full article…

Gamskogel

With a mixed weather forecast and following a lot of rain in the mountains we decided to head to the Gamskogel with the IMG, as it was relatively low, easy to access by train and shouldn’t have been too bad following the recent heavy rain. Due to the introduction of the 49 euro ticket in Germany, most of us took the train the Kufstein to start the walk, which was a nice social way to start the walk. The ascent to the Gamskogel was mostly in the forrest, but it took us up some nice scenery next to the Kienbach with glimpses out of the forest across and out of the Inntal, where there were some fairly ominous looking clouds. Thankfully we made it to the summit before it started to rain, where we had a lovely view in every direction, but unfortunately due to the forecast it certainly wasn’t a day to be hanging around. We made a quick descent down to the Weinbergerhaus for a lovely lunch, before making the descent back down to Kufstein for some ice cream and the train back to Munich.

Ruderhofspitze 3474m

This winter has not been a good winter for ski touring, with a distinct lack of precipitation and plenty of warm days, so running up to this weekend I was unsure if we would actually be able to make the tour. However thankfully there was some fresh snow in the last few weeks, and the weekend ended up having a good, if warm, forecast. Our plan for the weekend was to stay in the Franz-Senn-Hütte for two nights, with the primary objective being the Ruderhofspitze, a tall but relatively isolated peak, with a stunning snow arête up to the summit from the ski depot, so it looked like an excellent mountaineering objective. We headed down to the Stubaital early on Friday morning, with the thought that we would get to the hut and then go up and do something relatively short, however this was not to be as by the time we got to the hut it was really warm in the afternoon sun and we all needed to cool off after the ascent in the sun! The next morning we got up for first breakfast and were leaving the. Read the full article…