by site editor Rick McCharles
Though I’ve been hiking in Austria out of Bad Gastein for a week, I’m still not clear where to find the best hikes in this country. More than 60 percent of the nation is mountainous. Seems to me you would enjoy hiking almost anywhere.
A good starting point for someone hiking Austria for the first time, however, is Hohe Tauern, the largest of Austria’s six national parks.
Grossglockner 3,798m (12,460ft) is the highest peak in Austria.
Every Summer, over 1.2 million people drive an expensive toll road to see it.
I wasn’t one of them this Summer.
Instead, I tried to spy the big guy from the top of Kitzsteinhorn. That’s a very popular day trip out of Zell am See.
The Alexander Enzinger trail here is often touted a best hike in the area.
The day I rode one of the longest cable cars in the world (50min) the weather turned bleak. And I ran out of time to make it to the top station.
In fact, I must report that it was very ugly at the top of the ski lift. My least favourite place in the Alps, so far.
It was here, too, that 155 people died Nov. 11, 2000 in a tragic railway car tunnel fire.
… enough grim reporting from me …
Check out some gorgeous hiking photos of the area from Adventure4Ever. Everyone else aside from me loves this region.
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