Yesterday was warm-up day; today we were ready for a bigger hike. We picked one of the suggested walks from the Wanderkarte we got from the tourist information: a circular walk (the Neumarkter Runde) from the Schlegeis dam up to the Olperer Hütte and back again. 8.8 km and 675 metres of ascent.
The weather report promised clearer skies, and down in the valley it looked like the weather might actually clear up, but higher up in the mountains it was almost as foggy and cloudy as yesterday. We weren’t constantly wrapped in clouds, but the views were generally quite limited, except for the occasional moment when the clouds shifted away and we suddenly got a wide open view.
This was a beautiful walk despite the clouds. Or perhaps it was beautiful in part thanks to the clouds: because of the moisture, the mountains were lush and green. The lower slopes were thickly covered in pine and juniper. Rhododendrons flowered abundantly between the junipers as well as higher up above the tree line. There were plenty of little streams and waterfalls.
Higher up it got colder and we got some rain and wind. In places we even crossed some small patches of snow. We were quite glad to have packed fleece jackets and woolly hats (and in Adrian’s case, his beloved fingerless gloves).
The first half of the walk was basically all uphill, and by the end of it we were getting a bit fed up with the monotony of always going up. At the highest point we celebrated with a chilly lunch, perched on and between rocks, in the lee of yet more rocks. Another hour or so of walking got us to the Olperer Hütte for a late and well-deserved hot meal.
The path was very well marked, with red-white-red paint, and easy to walk. Well, the path was all uphill, but it was well built and stable. The steepest parts were almost staircases of large slabs of stone, no scrambling required. I had many occasions to wonder who had built these, and how – given the size of the stairs, it must have required a lot of lifting.
The kids enjoyed the stone cairns dotted along the path.
The way down was quite similar to the way up, but condensed and less varied. Downhill, gently at first and then more steeply, ziggy-zaggying alongside the same little stream almost all the way. Had we started out on this side (which I’m glad we didn’t, because of the steepness) then I would probably have found it beautiful, but after the first half of the walk the second didn’t impress quite so much. Our tiredness probably also played a part.