HAMMY AND WIFE: Schneeberg: Hiking the highest peak in Lower Austria

This summer has been the summer of many adventures. The occurring theme is suffering when we go off on our adventures; however, the view and the experiences have been well worth the effort.

The previous weekend from this hike, we went mountain biking. (no pictures) Now, the guy who led the bike informed me that the trail was beginner...30 miles total distance with 15 miles up a mountain!! Since when is that beginner!?! My favorite part is the sign we passed, which said "fun trail," "family trail," or "power trail." Which trail would you have taken? Me? Well it definitely isn't the power trail...but of course that is the one we took! I suffered to get to that point, but my suffering was no reason for fun or even family style cycling...no, we had to go for power...men!! Ok, I'm done complaining about the biking, because I actually did it and, 1) my legs did not fall off even though I swear they were going to, and 2) I did not vomit though I could not eat anything for the next 24 hours!

Now on to the hiking. I should premise this story with the fact that the same guy who led the mountain biking excursion also led the hike. We hiked a 6,000+ ft mountain. We took the ski lift up one side of the mountain and started at approximately 3,000 ft. It started off very steep, but normal climbing nonetheless. It was like hiking the blue ridge, but steeper....a lot steeper. We hiked 500ft in minutes and when we came out of the trees, what did we see but a huge rocky mountain in front of us...let the fun begin! So we began trucking up the mountain side on gravel..not just any gravel but gravel on steroids, which is terrible to walk on because you can't get your footing and you slip and slide all over the place. As we climbed at record pace, the rocks got bigger and so did the drop off lurking to our right side. There were no rails, no bushes, nothing to break your fall if you lost your balance,which is o' so comforting when you are slipping and sliding on gravel. Again ascending the mountain at a record pace thanks to our beast of a leader, around every bend was a new and more challenging obstacle.

(SIDE: Please note the size of the cow in the picture! They were huge and laying all over the place snoring! Ryan had a special moment with this big girl ;) Only in the Alps...) We basically rock climbed the next portion of the mountain by leaping over drops in the rock, shimmying between rocks and all of this without ropes or rails...exciting! This was actually my favorite part of the whole hike. I discovered that I'm really good at climbing this way and switched places with our fearless leader to lead the way...it was pretty awesome actually. Anyway, we finally got out of the rock climbing area to squishy meadows with gravel trails. This is when we all started slowing down...except our guide of course. We were exhausted, and at that elevation it was harder to breath. I think there were about 4 times when I thought, "ok, almost there, I can see the top!" But I was mistaken...it never ended!! At every crest there was another uphill climb. Needless to say I was ready to just sit down and enjoy my lunch on the squishy meadows.