Stubaital 2.0 with Felix and Silvi
In 2015 we went hiking in the Alps with another couple for the first time - Fabi's childhood friend Felix and his girlfriend Silvi. We had so much fun (and had such bad weather) last year that we decided to cut our hike short, and finish our originally planned tour a year later. This past weekend we did just that.
The 4 hour drive down to the Stubai Valley ("pronounced "shtoo-bye") went almost without a hitch and without traffic. We took the Fernpass - a highway that snakes through the mountains of the Tyrolean Alps in Austria. It's a popular scenic route for motorcyclists and campers on their way to vacation spots. At its highest point, there is a tiny town called Fernpass where you can buy gas and postcards and a bite to eat. Along the drive, you also pass was a lookout / rest stop with a perfect view of the tallest mountain in Germany - the Zugspitze! (It lies 13 miles from the Austrian border.)
We parked our car in Neustift: a good starting point for hikers in the summer, and in the winter a popular skiing town. It rained buckets. Felix threw a giant red poncho over me that made me look like Quasimodo and we hiked up a trail that was more like a stream for 2 hours up to the first "hut" for overnight - the Sulzenauhütte. (The pictures make it look luxurious, but we slept in bunk beds in the side house because it was completely booked up.) We spent the evening enjoying regional foods, drinking schnaps, and playing card games in the lower level, where every guest hangs out from dinner until bedtime. The huts - including the bedrooms - are rarely heated. They mostly rely on the body heat of the guests to warm the place up. Quiet hours start at 10 p.m., and by then you're definitely ready for some cool air! As we tip-toed back to the side house for bed, we noticed it had started snowing.
On Saturday morning, we woke up fresh and ready to face the day! The snow had accumulated on the highest parts of the mountains, including over the saddle (the dip between peaks) we would have to climb over later.
We began our route around 8 a.m. and trapsed through fog, up past the tree line, and up into marmot country. We heard them whistle to warn their family members of the stranger danger, but caught a glimpse of one baby and its mama before they disappeared into their burrows. The snow got deeper as we trekked.
Just 50 meters under the saddle to the next valley, Felix could no longer see the trail. The fog rolled in again and we decided that we'd have to turn around and take another route. We climbed back down the way we came at turtle pace, careful not to slip on the snowy rocks. Back at the fork at the lake, we ate a very short lunch and had a chat with hikers coming down from our alternative route. The new trail was shorter but steeper, and we were assured by our fellow hikers that it was doable despite the snow.
My legs started to ache and complain. I needed many more breaks than the others to reach the new saddle. It looked like this:
Just a pile of snowy rocks, right? Totally easy to climb over, right? Yes... except that the elevation was roughly 9,000 feet, and the dropoff on the right side (where we were coming from) is an incline of about three minutes til midnight on a clock face - for at least 1,000 feet. Metal cables had been installed into the rock to assist hikers with climbing in wet, slippery conditions. We were grateful for that, and for the 10 square feet of flat surface at the very top with yellow signs marking the way.
The climb back down was much more comfortable. That side of the mountain hadn't received as much snow. We made our descent to the plateu where our next hut was located. In this picture you can see the equivalent of the height of 9 times the St. Louis Arch from where we are standing, all the way down into the valley where our car was parked:
After 7 hours of hiking straight up and straight down, crashing at the hut was incredibly rewarding. We took our stinky, sweaty clothing to the dry room - a handy but rather appalling feature of Apline huts. By the next morning, everything is dry, warm and stinks a lot less. Dinner at this hut was much fancier than at the first. I ordered a kind of Austrian maultaschen shaped a bit more like chinese pot stickers, filled with local goat cheese and spinach and smothered in hot butter. (When you're hiking, you need fat and carbs, so all the meals are hearty.) We laughed at the English translation of the menu - our meals came with a "big fancy salad." After dinner, we sat in the common area, played Trouble and sampled Swiss stone pine schnaps - I can highly recommend it! It smells like a pine tree and tastes sweet and woody, like the sap.
The next day I needed some coaxing in order to accompany them all on our mini side-hike to another lake. I got a little cranky and kept wanting to stop, return to the hut, and wait for them. The trail proved fairly easy and not very steep, though, so I stayed with the group. The view we had for lunch was definitely worth it! We watched the clouds billow around the highest peaks, covered in snow, and sat near the outflow from the lake to eat our lunch.
All that was left after this was our hike back down into the valley. We planned an early afternoon dinner at the pleateu, before the last 40-minute stretch of trail back to the car. This last part of our journey was agruably my favorite, due to the furry friends we met along the way! This side of the valley, according to a shepherd Fabi talked to on the trail, is the grazing ground of nearly 600 goats. They are used to hikers and looked at us curiously as we climbed over their lounging bodies along the trail. You could also see where they'd been because of the lack of leaves on the bottom half of all the bushes in the area.
It felt good to be back in an altitude that can support various kinds of plants and wildlife. Every year, I feel so accomplished and relieved when I've descended far enough to hear the jingling of cow bells and the buzzing of insects.
The trail took us to the wrong parking lot, and Fabi hitch-hiked with a friendly Spanish couple and their dog to pick up our car. The rest of us waited at the bus stop, took off our hiking boots, and enjoyed the feeling of sitting around barefoot until he returned.
The drive home was painfully Long and ridden with traffic and accidents - not the best end to our weekend, considering Fabi and I had to work the next morning, but it was made more jolly by Felix cracking jokes and breaking into dance moves in the back seat. We decided that, for reasons ranging from traffic to the weather, we won't be headed back to the Stubai Valley for next year's trip.
The 4 hour drive down to the Stubai Valley ("pronounced "shtoo-bye") went almost without a hitch and without traffic. We took the Fernpass - a highway that snakes through the mountains of the Tyrolean Alps in Austria. It's a popular scenic route for motorcyclists and campers on their way to vacation spots. At its highest point, there is a tiny town called Fernpass where you can buy gas and postcards and a bite to eat. Along the drive, you also pass was a lookout / rest stop with a perfect view of the tallest mountain in Germany - the Zugspitze! (It lies 13 miles from the Austrian border.)
We parked our car in Neustift: a good starting point for hikers in the summer, and in the winter a popular skiing town. It rained buckets. Felix threw a giant red poncho over me that made me look like Quasimodo and we hiked up a trail that was more like a stream for 2 hours up to the first "hut" for overnight - the Sulzenauhütte. (The pictures make it look luxurious, but we slept in bunk beds in the side house because it was completely booked up.) We spent the evening enjoying regional foods, drinking schnaps, and playing card games in the lower level, where every guest hangs out from dinner until bedtime. The huts - including the bedrooms - are rarely heated. They mostly rely on the body heat of the guests to warm the place up. Quiet hours start at 10 p.m., and by then you're definitely ready for some cool air! As we tip-toed back to the side house for bed, we noticed it had started snowing.
On Saturday morning, we woke up fresh and ready to face the day! The snow had accumulated on the highest parts of the mountains, including over the saddle (the dip between peaks) we would have to climb over later.
 |
| Felix, Silvi and I feeling motivated. |
 |
| Snowy lake reflections |
We began our route around 8 a.m. and trapsed through fog, up past the tree line, and up into marmot country. We heard them whistle to warn their family members of the stranger danger, but caught a glimpse of one baby and its mama before they disappeared into their burrows. The snow got deeper as we trekked.
 |
| Me in marmot country |
Just 50 meters under the saddle to the next valley, Felix could no longer see the trail. The fog rolled in again and we decided that we'd have to turn around and take another route. We climbed back down the way we came at turtle pace, careful not to slip on the snowy rocks. Back at the fork at the lake, we ate a very short lunch and had a chat with hikers coming down from our alternative route. The new trail was shorter but steeper, and we were assured by our fellow hikers that it was doable despite the snow.
My legs started to ache and complain. I needed many more breaks than the others to reach the new saddle. It looked like this:
 |
| The snowy saddle |
Just a pile of snowy rocks, right? Totally easy to climb over, right? Yes... except that the elevation was roughly 9,000 feet, and the dropoff on the right side (where we were coming from) is an incline of about three minutes til midnight on a clock face - for at least 1,000 feet. Metal cables had been installed into the rock to assist hikers with climbing in wet, slippery conditions. We were grateful for that, and for the 10 square feet of flat surface at the very top with yellow signs marking the way.
The climb back down was much more comfortable. That side of the mountain hadn't received as much snow. We made our descent to the plateu where our next hut was located. In this picture you can see the equivalent of the height of 9 times the St. Louis Arch from where we are standing, all the way down into the valley where our car was parked:
 |
| Felix and Silvi, with the plateu to the right and the valley far below us in the center |
After 7 hours of hiking straight up and straight down, crashing at the hut was incredibly rewarding. We took our stinky, sweaty clothing to the dry room - a handy but rather appalling feature of Apline huts. By the next morning, everything is dry, warm and stinks a lot less. Dinner at this hut was much fancier than at the first. I ordered a kind of Austrian maultaschen shaped a bit more like chinese pot stickers, filled with local goat cheese and spinach and smothered in hot butter. (When you're hiking, you need fat and carbs, so all the meals are hearty.) We laughed at the English translation of the menu - our meals came with a "big fancy salad." After dinner, we sat in the common area, played Trouble and sampled Swiss stone pine schnaps - I can highly recommend it! It smells like a pine tree and tastes sweet and woody, like the sap.
The next day I needed some coaxing in order to accompany them all on our mini side-hike to another lake. I got a little cranky and kept wanting to stop, return to the hut, and wait for them. The trail proved fairly easy and not very steep, though, so I stayed with the group. The view we had for lunch was definitely worth it! We watched the clouds billow around the highest peaks, covered in snow, and sat near the outflow from the lake to eat our lunch.
 |
| Dashing through the snow |
All that was left after this was our hike back down into the valley. We planned an early afternoon dinner at the pleateu, before the last 40-minute stretch of trail back to the car. This last part of our journey was agruably my favorite, due to the furry friends we met along the way! This side of the valley, according to a shepherd Fabi talked to on the trail, is the grazing ground of nearly 600 goats. They are used to hikers and looked at us curiously as we climbed over their lounging bodies along the trail. You could also see where they'd been because of the lack of leaves on the bottom half of all the bushes in the area.
 |
| This little guy was particularly curious! |
It felt good to be back in an altitude that can support various kinds of plants and wildlife. Every year, I feel so accomplished and relieved when I've descended far enough to hear the jingling of cow bells and the buzzing of insects.
The trail took us to the wrong parking lot, and Fabi hitch-hiked with a friendly Spanish couple and their dog to pick up our car. The rest of us waited at the bus stop, took off our hiking boots, and enjoyed the feeling of sitting around barefoot until he returned.
The drive home was painfully Long and ridden with traffic and accidents - not the best end to our weekend, considering Fabi and I had to work the next morning, but it was made more jolly by Felix cracking jokes and breaking into dance moves in the back seat. We decided that, for reasons ranging from traffic to the weather, we won't be headed back to the Stubai Valley for next year's trip.
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