After a beautiful 45 minutes drive from Innsbruck, our car turned off the highway and down a paved road marked with potholes and washboard asphalt. This was a very unusual sight, for the public roads in Austria are superb, but then I learned this was a private drive and shared by several farms. A short distance later we approached a sign with instructions for visitors to pay a €3 Euro toll. We stuffed some money in the box and continued on. Slowly the rough asphalt ended and became packed dirt interspaced with gravel.
I would have enjoyed walking in this area for the mountain stream waltzed with the country road, allowing us to witness a dazzling display of brisk cascades, glassy waterfalls, and blue pools all framed against a thickly wooded forest.
Our car stopped at a farm, we parked and gathered our backpacks. The trail was a continuation of the road, but here it was just hardened tire tracks that created a line that curved across the pasture and up the valley.
At one point a number of honey bees buzzed past and smoke could be smelled in the air. Ahead of us, at the side of the road, were scores of bees hives. Some people were tending to the hives using smoke to calm the bees.
The trail ascended up the valley for the next hour and then became very steep. For some reason, several cows had started to follow us up the hill. After a few heart-pumping minutes of walking a steep section, we arrived at the Adolf-Pichler-Hütte. The Hütte is named in honor of Adolf Pichler, an Austrian writer, and scientist who lived in the 1800s.
The cows were not far behind us as we arrived at the solidly constructed Hütte.
Those who traveled to this location had the most bejeweled natural spectacle to enjoy; in this Alpine valley the mountains, named Kalkkögel, soared perpendicular into the sky like enormous, jagged, stone knife blades rising several thousand feet higher over us.
As afternoon approached – the clouds momentarily broke – allowing the sun’s light to gallop down the sheer rock face and instantly conquered the majority of the shadows on the mountain, only in the farthest of recesses did the darkness prevail. The interplay of light on the mountain face was magical, momentary and fleeting – the spectacle made one’s heart race – it was a moment of being alive.
Everyone played in a small stream and explored some side trails. Several cows mooed in the distance then others, not far away, started to run, they disappeared over a hill. …Several minutes later we heard a clamor, the same cows crested the hill close to us and ran down in our direction, we gave them plenty of room, they ran passed and onto some unseen green pasture.
It was late in the afternoon and we passed by the hut on our return visit. Other hikers had gathered to enjoy some late lunch. A table opened up on the small open courtyard and we enjoyed some drinks and soup. All the time enjoying the vistas that the valley offered.
A black-faced cat, his grimaced expression formed from having a slightly recessed nose, indignantly walked around the tables and on the countertop before being shooed away.
In a side barn was an oven, loaves of freshly baked bread sat on the top of the stove, ready to be devoured. We had some with our lunch, it was good bread.
As we left I saw, in a garden pot, the most curious looking white flower – it was Edelweiss. The flower was soft and gentle on the fingers. When you travel to Tirol you will see a multi-pointed flower drawn sometimes on signage, restaurant menus and embroidered onto clothes. This is that flower.
Returning to the car I saw a classic looking motorbike parked nearby. The bike, the farm setting, the mountains in the distance, the jacket laid casually across the seat…it was just cool. I had to snap a photo.