Hiking in the Austrian Alps
Some pictures of my hiking trip to Austria in July. It was unbelievably hot for being in Central Europe, some days were up to 40°C (104°F), which makes hiking quite demanding, even if it obviously is cooler at high altitudes.
Below: Typical majestic valley of the Alps. The deep valleys and steep mountains are spectacular. The waterfall you see is the Krimml Waterfall, the 5th largest in the world (380 m, 1,247 feet)). Not very easy to reach though, car or bike is a must (if you aren't a professional cyclist riding through the 18 hairpin turns up and down)
Below: The Krimmler Waterfall, just a small part of it. Unfortunately it's impossible to capture how massive it is because of its shape.
Below: The mountain left of the "pyramid" shaped mountain is Austria's highest mountain, Großglockner. From this picture it can hardly be seen, just a little glimpse of it. It looks like it has two tops, like it's split on the top in two parts. This mountain range is called Hohe Tauern, and contains most of Austria's highest mountains. Hohe Tauern has a quite high alpine feel to it, and by this I mean that while the mountains aren't as high as those in the Swiss and French Alps, they are still majestic and awe-inspiring.
This picture is taken from Edelweißspitze (2571 m).
Below: A closer look at Großglockner (the one on the left). It has its own glacier too, but as it's so remotely located, it's hard to catch good glimpses of it. To be honest, it's no beauty, and quite hard to catch a good view of if you don't want to hike there for many days. Still, the Austrians are very proud of it. IMO there are many mountains in Austria that are more impressive.
Below: Hohe Tauern National Park is a quite impressive place.
Below: While not exactly hiking, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road I'd highly recommend. You can drive to the top of the mountain pass and hike from there too.
Below: Königssee (the King's sea), an alpine sea in Bavaria, Southern Germany (just a stone throw away from the border to Austria)
Southern Germany and Northern Austria don't differ much culturally, lingiusticually and traditionwise, you won't even notice you cross the border if you don't look at the signs. And yes, a considerable amount of the people here in these areas wear lederhosen. The German Bavarians are fiercely independent and consider themselves Bavarians first, and Germans second. The same applies to the Austrians. Bunde (state) comes before nation.
I've yet to find a more beautiful place to hike than the Alps, so I can highly recommend it. I've seen higher mountains, but the Alps make that up with splendid beauty. Austria is a wonderful place for hiking, but if you can affort it, go to Switzerland or France. The scenery there, with the likes of Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, is well worth the money.
