Hochtor feelgood

05-09-12

Spent last night in a car park specially for campervans in a charming little village, Vordernberg on the eastern side of the Eisenzer Alpen.

Then in the morning headed into the Gesause National Park.

Hochtor's north wall from Gr Buchstein

Today's mission was to tackle an Ultra, Hochtor (2369m P1520) starting from a little car park next to a bridge over the river Enns. There is no gentle introduction to track 660 -  immediately it goes uphill through the trees with plenty of exposed tree roots (which made me think I don't want to be finishing this walk at dusk). Eventually the track reaches a massive steep wall that was as difficult to take in as Vienna's buildings were. It looked impenetrable. However, the map showed a way - marked by a red dotted line. And, thankfully there was little water in the waterfall to contend with.
On a British OS map, tracks are generally and simply referred to as either footpaths, public footpaths or bridleways. On the freytag & berndt maps there are three kinds of tracks. A continuous red line is for 'a path for hiking or strolling, easily passable on foot'; a dashed red line denotes 'path for hiking in the mountains; whereas a dotted red line is 'Alpine steep track for mountain-experienced hikers with steady steps and with a good head for heights, route partial scramble'. If I was going to get to the Hesshutte refuge at 1699m I was going to have to develop some 'steady steps'.
As an ascent route it was OK, there were several stretches of via ferrata, not all of it really needed when ascending in the dry and useful  step ladders up the vertical bits. There was just one point where I wondered how I would I cope with on descent. The path then entered Ebbrsanger, a steep wooded hanging valley and right at the top of the valley is the Hesshutte precariously hanging over the edge.

Ebbersanger valley - with a tiny Hesshutte at the top

Hesshutte from below

Hesshutte from the start of track 664

So that was the walk-in done. The hutte gave a chance for a cup of fruit tea before tackling the main summit of Hochtor which presented another steep and impenetrable looking wall with a need for more 'steady steps' on track 664.

It looks like all the tracks in Austria are marked with a red square and a horizontal white line - similar to the Austrian flag. So, you have to double check you are following the right track - and I think it could be easily confused with a no-entry sign.

Looking down on a tiny Hesshutte

A 'steady steps' section on the Hochtor summit ridge

Track 663 offered a variety of steep tracks through dwarf pines, walking across scree slopes, and quite a bit of mainly easy via ferrata. I allowed myself be fooled by a false summit - should have checked my GPS and realised there was quite way to go along the summit ridge. Not only that, there was some descent and reascent with 'steady steps' and chains too. However, I was quite pleased that I was keeping well within the timings on the signposts - I was confident that I would be able to get back to my van before dark.

The summit is marked by a big metal cross - I was going to discover that is not a rarity on Austrian summits - and,  in a metal box, there was a logbook to complete, with a plug for this blog duly added.

So all I needed to do was reverse the route. If I could get to the hutte before 17.00 I would carry on down to easily beat the dusk at around 19.30. If I was later than that or the weather turned for the worse I would seek refuge.

Looking back across the Hochtor ridge

I passed the hutte just before17.00 and although there were clouds in the sky I decided to carry on, without even stopping for another cup of tea - and certainly not a beer. I made good time down the valley to the top of the giant wall - and started down the via ferrata. And then the weather turned - the lightning and thunder came repetitively and close. The rain was torrential - I had some shelter from the buttresses above me, but I knew that I could not hang around as I certainly did not want to be there in the dark.
I was soon quite wet and using metal via ferrata in a thunderstorm generated in me a range of interesting emotions. Most interesting to me was that 'panic' wasn't one of those emotions. Do I turn back and go to the hutte wet through and no change of clothing or do I carry on. I carried on down the wall, across the now raging waterfall and down into the trees and their roots. Much lower down I realised that if I kept with the stream that had been the waterfall I could get down to a reservoir in the valley below. So I ignored the marked trail as it turned away from the stream, which eventually became culverted and it brought me out on an unpaved road just as the dusk light was low enough to have made those tree roots a problem. The unpaved road took me right back to the start point.
 As for the rain - that continued for the next 24 hours. If I had gone back to the hutte I would have still had to tackle the via ferrata in the wet and if I had waited for the rain to stop before continuing, it would have been a long wait.
But hey, that's another Ultra.

Another view of Hochtor from Gr Buckstein

Klimt up a staircase in Wien

My collection of flags of countries visited on this trip :-)

   02/04-09-12

Vienna is so close to Bratislava it seemed silly not to visit it too.

Usually on a city break you tend to have an ‘in a bubble’ experience – all you see of the world outside the touristy bit is at the airport and on the shuttle bus or train to the centre based hotel. Driving across the country to get there gives a different perspective. 

My first impression of Vienna was that it is a big noisy traffic blighted city and that it does not nestle in mountains as I had expected – maybe I had mixed it up with somewhere like Geneva. 

I quickly withdrew from trying to drive in the city and left my van in a campsite by the river Donau/Danube and then cycled into town on mainly excellent although, at times, confusing cycle tracks. 

Schweizertor 16th baroque Swiss gate - Alte burg castle

The issue with Vienna for me is that it lacks subtlety – the buildings are just too big to take in and there are so many big pieces of ‘Art’. Other tourists were frantically taking pictures with their cameras, phones and iPads. I found that the wide angle on my camera just was not wide enough. However, cycling around the centre there were moments of wonder and awe. And I do like the way the modern city and the historic buildings are mingled together.

Best of all were:

       1. The freytag & berndt book and mapshop with a large Alpine section containing hundreds of different maps from all over Europe – for example,  they had more Discoverer/Discovery maps of Ireland than I have ever seen in any Irish bookshop. There was a serious temptation of spending a year’s pension on maps, that I had to fight.

           2. A room full of  paintings by the brilliant Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Kunsthistorisches Museum – including  the astonishing Hunter in the Snow. There were works of other lesser artists (like Durer or Rubens) and occasionally there was something that looked familiar from constant reproduction, like Rembrandt’s self portrait or Vermeer’s Artist studio. Arcimboldo's portraits of heads are fun. Unfortunately, like many other galleries there were just too many of those paintings of Christ being breastfed, semi-naked depictions of Greek myths and those endless portraits of so-called nobles. Certainly not enough landscapes, for my taste.

3. Ah but, and  I reveal my ignorance here, I was not aware that in the same museum/gallery were those paintings by Gustav Klimt that are reproduced everywhere and are there literally to decorate the landing wall at the top of the stairs. The museum have put in a platform so that you can go up there, as the sign said ‘at your own risk’ and look at the paintings close up. However, the platform does spoil the view of them as intended by the artist and the architect. A case of ‘went up a staircase and came down slightly disappointed that I could not view the summit from below’.

So, churches can be useful - as a hoarding site.

Anti-war sculpture, Albertinaplatz

Bratislava - a capital place

Bratislava Hrad

01/02-09-12

Bratislava’s centre is another of those cities where the old buildings have been largely preserved and become museum pieces that have little to do with the day to day life of most of the people who live around it. There are signs of prosperity outside the tourist centre, however there are also signs of the soviet legacy.

I quite liked the centre as it is not too big and not too showy. Although, as usual, the castles and churches are a reminder that in the past the wealth and power rested with the rulers and the church and were probably built at the cost of the lives of the rest of the people.

The main squares and the streets around it in the ‘Historical Centre’ were lively with tourists, craft stalls  and street musicians. 

Everyday scene in the streets of Bratislava

Bratislava Hrad from across the Danube

P95 and 6.50 Euro

One major soviet legacy is the busy dual carriageway that chops the city centre in two – separating St Martin’s Cathedral from the Bratislava Hrad (Castle) quite brutally – and introducing a continuous roar of traffic. The road as it crosses the river has a restaurant at the top of a tower – I decided against bagging the tower as it is only a P95 and costs 6.50 Euros. 

So, instead, I cycled alongside the rivers  Danube and Morava on the Slovakian side to Devin castle, up on a crag overlooking where the rivers meet. Although the idea of following those rivers sounds romantic it wasn’t that much different an experience as cycling the towpath on the Huddersfield  Narrow canal. However, you cannot look across to Austria from Marsden. 

Just one word of advice to anyone thinking of using the Bratislava campsite near Zlate piesky - don't. It was dirty, noisy and they obviously have serious problems with security - it has its own police station - not even with wi-fi as a compensation. Shame, as I used a couple of other campsites in Slovakia and they were fine - and really cheap.

Devin and the Danube

Devin Hrad

A shop for baggers.

Went up to Hungary's highest point and came down the next day

Sign of Hungary

31-08-12

Kekes (1014m P774) Hungary’s highest point. Kekes means ‘bluish’ and from a distance it fits. Close up the hill is a mess – with carparks, ski runs, TV tower and all sorts of other constructions including a shrine to dead motorcyclists (you would have thought that after so many, other riders would just take more care to avoid having another scarf added for them). The top is marked by a stone painted in Hungary’s colours – there is a higher spot nearby behind a fence, however it looks like it could be human-made, most likely a covered reservoir. It was too public a spot to risk being caught scaling the fence.

The carpark was a handy place to stay the night – so there is a first for me, sleeping on a country top (almost).

Kekes mast adds to the mess

Kekes ass

Motorcyclist mausoleum

Polana, bear right

31-08-12

Polana Horsky Hotel

Polana summit sign - not at  the summit

Polana (1463m P732) which overlooks the town of Hrinova.

The most difficult part of this trip was finding the start point without a map. It seemed a long drive up to the Polana Horsky Hotel which had a bear for its logo. The sign post for Polana said an hour, so that means it was about 30-45 minutes away. The path wound gently across meadows and through woods to a summit post that was definitely not at the summit. 

Most people would have been satisfied, however when exploring around I found two tops – one had a post with a logbook and the other was a pile of rocks that could have been human-made. Obviously as a bagger, I made sure I visited every point before doubling back to the hotel, for the usual cup of tea.

Flutter by

Summit rock - real or artificial?

Polana summit logbook

Carline thistle