Forest Chump

alpsAustriaMini adventuresMountains HikingAustria trip 2023Campervan Life

Sep 13

8th September 2023

There have been many times that we have failed to reach our mountain objectives over the years. Most have been beyond our control, but occasionally the phrase, “Serves you right for being so stupid” is appropriate.

It all started very innocuously. Park Gandalf in a shady spot and head off for an easy, if long, hike up to a mountain alm (and café) some 900 metres up through an ancient forest.

Shortly after leaving Gandalf we came across a beautiful, tiny church…

… we paid our respects and moved on, confident that we now had the blessing of some higher power.

This was to be a circular hike, so we gaily passed the exit point to the route, regretfully missing a sign. Which, in our defence was in German and didn’t start with the one word in German, ACHTUNG! that sceams out “WARNING!” (mostly because it means warning). Anyway, there was a sign that would have told us, had we been able to translate it, that we probably should rethink our route.

About one kilometre later we turned up into the forest and it wasn’t long before we were faced with a vague barrier across the trail.

There have been a lot of storms here lately causing road closures, bridge collapses, landslides etc. The whole Ötztal valley was closed for nearly a week! The Ötztal valley is huge. To give an idea of size, the detour for the usual 15 minute drive from Umhausen to Längenfeld was almost four hours long and involved looping round into Italy and back.

So maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t have simply walked round the barrier.

Maybe our opinion of, “How bad can it be?” was… erm… lets say misguided.

Maybe the title of this blog is apt.

The following photos show why we never got up the 900 metres to the alm (and coffee stop) and had to turn round after about 2 hours and just 200 metres of ascent.