Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Sportgastein is the highest ski resort in the ski-intensive Gastein valley in Austria.
In the Summer it’s a lovely place to hike or bike. The best destination out of the alpine town of Bad Gastein.
A few pics from my two days there.
It was more work than I expected climbing up to Nidersachsenhaus. Great views though.
more of my Sportgastein photos on flickr
everyone’s Sportgastein photos on flickr
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.
An excellent article on one of the best hikes in Peru was posted on Matador Trips: Discover Your Own Machu Picchu: Choquequirao, Peru
Did you visit Machu Picchu thinking you’d arrived 50 years too late? Wish you could’ve seen it before the tourist hordes and luxury hotel moved in? Then Choquequirao might be for you. …
There are very few trekkers there in comparison with Machu Picchu. We did it in 2005 and had the ruins to ourselves.
It’s a massive up and down hike. We hired a mule and mule driver to carry our packs.
The scenery is fantastic, of course.
Our biggest concern was the tiny biting flies. (Especially after their bites get infected.)
read the entire Matador article: Discover Your Own Machu Picchu: Choquequirao, Peru
Read the comments for some personal stories on continuing from Choquequirao to Machu Picchu without a guide.
P.S.
There’s one drastic mistake in the story:
From the village to the ruins and back, you’re looking at 74 km (46 miles). …
It’s nowhere near that far. … Is it?
More details and links on our besthike Choquequirao Trek information page.
The Italian Dolomites.
by site editor Rick McCharles
I write from Europe. This is the first adjustment to our Top 10 hiking regions since we first published them. Northern Italy has been added.
High altitude adventure and colourful sunsets. Wow! The Dolomites are far better than I expected. This was my first trip.
At besthike we rank all mountain vistas in the world against Paine in Chile, and Fitz Roy in Argentina.
The scenery in the Dolomites may be just as good. And there are far, far more stunning jagged peaks in Italy than in all of South America.
Many, many Europeans get out hiking during the Summer. Trails are crowded everywhere throughout the Dolomites and the Alps. There’s a great shared sense of community here.
Instant gratification. You can ride chair lifts up to the very tops of some of these peaks. How convenient is that? Almost anyone can find a best hike for themselves in this range.
WW I history in the Dolomites is sobering. German, Austrian and Italian soldiers were stuck digging tunnels through these mountains through several winters. This was the “Front”. Needless to say, far more young men died from the elements and falls than by fire fights. There are reminders of the Great War everywhere.
Here is the home of via ferrata (Italian for “iron road”). (In fact, our next trip to the Dolomites will be dedicated to doing some of the best of those assisted climbing routes.)
Not everything is perfect in the Dolomites. I prefer the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, overall.
In the Sierras I can put up a tent anywhere I want. Fantastic.
Unfortunately, in the Dolomites you are required to sleep in alpine buildings called Refuges. (Refugios – Italian). Their locations are stunning. Many people love them. But – personally – I prefer my tent over sleeping on the floor. Or in bunk beds.
Happily you can reach almost any place in the Dolomites by day hike. Public transportation in the valleys below is good!
The two regions – the Sierras and the Dolomites – are similar in that everywhere is a best hike.
I do like the food and drink at Refugios. Prices are regulated.
The main reason I had not hiked in Europe in 30yrs is cost. Italy can be expensive.
It’s possible to hike on the cheap. Putting up my tent in a campground in Cortina only cost 9€ (US$12.80) / night in 2009. Bread, chocolate, soft cheese and wine are inexpensive. What more do you need?
Dan & Janine Patitucci relocated from California to the Dolomites. A good site in English for inspiration. A partner offers Dolomite hiking and biking tours.
For specific information on how to hike these limestone mountains, check our Dolomites Information page.
Leave a comment if you have your own favourite hike in the Dolomites.
Jeni and just about everyone else told me to travel to the most beautiful lake in the country. It looks like a fjord.
You get there from Berchtesgaden, 30km south of Salzburg. Hitler’s mountain residence, the Berghof, was located near here though Der Fuehrer rarely visited due to security worries. Today the Nazi Eagle’s Nest is a restaurant.
Nationalpark Berchtesgaden was established in 1978 and has gradually become one of the region’s largest tourist draws. While technically in Germany, this spot is surrounded on 3 sides by Austria.
The day I was at the lake a boatload of tourists disgorged every 10min to visit a famed pilgrimage church.
From the church I climbed up an interesting gorge to Kärlingerhaus, a popular mountain lodge.
Nice. But my real goal for the day was to reach the Steinernes Meer. The stone sea. A bleak and rocky plateau.
Weird. Geologically ineresting. And beautiful.
At Riemann-Haus I could have escaped back down to the valley.
Instead I had a beer on their deck. And listened to some Army mountain climbers sing group songs before setting out for the cliffs.
Immediately after … I got badly lost. (A gorgeous sidetrip, as it turned out.)
What direction would you go if your guidebook told you to take route 411?
A highlight of this hike for me personally was seeing many Chamois up close. For the first time.
Even better was crossing a high mountain pass alone to meet Mt. Watzmann.
What a great evening I had up there!
This is the best hike in the Bavarian Alps. A hiking region surrounded and overshadowed by more famous neighbours: Dolomites, Austrian Alps and the Swiss Alps.
But I’ll be adding the Stone Sea to our list of the best hikes in Europe.
It’s fantastic.
I posted 80 photos from this 3 day hike on flickr.
There’s only one guidebook in English: Walking in the Bavarian Alps. It’s one of the weakest Cicerone guidebooks I’ve used.
The Brenta Mountains in the Dolomites are popular with via ferrata (iron road), cable assisted, climbers.
They stretch 40km (25mi) on a north-south axis. I nearly chose to hike a lengthwise itinerary called The Mighty Brenta Dolomite Traverse. … Unfortunately transport to the trailheads was problematic.
Instead I crossed west to east from famed tourist trap Madonna di Campiglio to the most lovely mountain town I’ve found in Europe so far, Molveno.
Again I took a cable car to start as high as possible.
I was delivered to Rif. Tuckett and Sela.
The wildflowers are still going strong in late July. (They are nearly gone now in Canada.)
It’s great being instantly on top of the world. Just like heli-hiking. The start is mostly a traverse under the highest peaks. Amazing. Such easy access to this environment.
The sunset was a classic Dolomite experience. Wow.
Next morning the weather was fantastic. So I stashed my pack in the boulders and dashed up as high as I could go to Rif. Alimonta.
Wonderful. But daylight was burning. I turned back and pushed hard to get over the mountains.
Here was the crux of the hike when I was there. (It was not quite as bad as it looks in the photo. But it was challenging.)
I entrusted a Summit Stone to the virgin guarding the highest pass.
This is astonishing Rif. Pedrotti 2491m. Many famed climbers have stayed here.
Starving, but in a mad rush now to get DOWN off this mountain, I ordered a meal. It tasted FANTASTIC at this altitude.
No photos from my decent. I practically ran from 3000m to the lake at 868m in order to be sure I would catch a bus out of the valley.
That was one long, long exit.
Whew.
This was my personal favourite of the 4 Dolomite hikes I did on this trip. See the rest of my photos on flickr.
Krista Morris posted some great pics on Facebook.
… 11 hours of hiking, 4 hours of driving! …
They summited Niblock, Whyte, and a 3rd peak on a beautiful sunny July day near Lake Louise, Alberta in Banff National Park.
Trip report by besthike editor Rick McCharles.
I was super excited to hike the Alpe di Siusi region of the Dolomites.
… Seiser Alm, (Italian: Alpe di Siusi) is the largest high altitude Alpine meadow in Europe. Located in Italy’s Bolzano-Bozen province (South Tyrol) in the Dolomites mountain range, it is a major tourist attraction, known for skiing and hiking. …
I planned 3 days, 2 nights. A big trip. Lots of mileage.
To get started, I cheated by riding the cable car to Compaccio 1844m (5050ft), a busy mountain tourist trap.
Arriving late afternoon, I was quite quickly forced into a cave.
OK, it was actually a storage space under a ski lift. I relaxed, dry, for about 90min.
The typical late afternoon rain ended. Some blue sky appeared. So I set off across gorgeous alpine meadows in the direction of the high peaks. Towards Rifugio Bolzano. I was following the Walk 24 itinerary from Walking in the Dolomites: 28 Multi-Day Routes by Gillian Price.
I was alone in the early evening except for many friendly cows.
Surprisingly, the skies threatened rain once again. To stay completely dry, I quickly set up my (technically illegal) tent on the side of the mountain. There I got pounded with a severe storm. Thunder and lightning non-stop for at least 5hrs. Super dangerous in the mountains. I feared for my life.
It continued raining all night.
I stayed in the tent 10hrs before I finally heard it stop.
Unzipping the fly , I was astonished to see this winter wonderland. It was July. In sunny Italy.
Snow is always better than rain for a hiker. I packed up as quickly as I could. And headed back down the mountain. The only other hikers I passed were a couple from Norway. They had the same idea. Hiking in the snow is beautiful. Hiking in the rain, a drag.
That night I ended up in a soft bed in a terrific hostel in the quiet mountain town of Brixen.
All’s well that ends well, I guess.
But I REALLY want to go back ….
By the way, my friend Jeni had a similar experience on this same route. She got lost, taking a wrong trail/animal track. On the side of a steep mountain she decided to rope herself to the cliff. Gathering her wits, she finally decided on the safest way out of danger.
Even when there are hundreds of other hikers around, the mountains can still be very dangerous.
This was a cautionary adventure for me. It was almost as scary as the lighting storm I experienced on the John Muir Trail.
Right now in Saltzburg.
Cannot seem to put my hands on any of the Cicerone hiking guidebooks covering the region. (They do not stock many English language titles in Austria.)
Leave a comment if you have a recommendation for the best hike around the biggest mountain.
Trip report by besthike editor Rick McCharles.
Like my hike to the 3 Peaks, again this trailhead starts high, at a bus stop mountain pass
I followed exactly trip #10 from my hiking guide. I planned, as recommended, to sleep the unique and extreme Rifugio Nuvolau 2575m (8450ft)
Sadly all the bunks were reserved, the only Refugio I’ve found completely full, so far.
This lofty aerie is totally dangerous. It would never be allowed in Canada. I assume one or two people fall to their deaths off the cliff every year.
Here’s a guy drying his t-shirt on the helicopter landing pad a few feet from the brink.
I’m a little more cautious getting that close to the drop-off.
There are the famed 5 towers far below.
From here they don’t look like 5 towers. But from Cortina they do.
It was a fantastic hike. Just gorgeous. See the rest of my photos.
On the return to my starting point I checked 3 more Refugios. All had space for me. But I did not like any of them. Especially the one that suggested the price 45€.
The one previous charged 26€ for a basic bunk bed.
Happily there was a late bus back to town. I slept in my own tent in Camping Rocchetta back in Cortina. Cost 9€.
The 5 Towers is a well known destination for mountain climbers:
… Cinque Torri, meaning “Five Towers”, is a group of actually more than 5 towers that lies on the south slopes of Falzarego Pass above Cortina d’Ampezzo. …
Summit Post – Cinque Torri Group
Highly recommended!
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