Austria: Hiking Kanzelhöhe to Gerlitzen Gipfel
Austria Day 4: Hiking the change of seasons
Hiking Highlights: Today we started out at the Kanzelhöhe 1440 m (4,724 ft) and hiked to the top, Gerlitzen Gipfel 1911 m (6,270 ft).
This circular hike started out so warm we made a decision to leave our extra jackets in the car for the first time. Oops!! Okay, okay I know…such a rookie mistake, right?!? Well as you may have guessed, by the time we reached the peak and stopped at Gerlitzen Gipfelhaus we were encountering blustery winds and the temps were dropping quite rapidly.
Wet with sweat from the exertion of climbing up the mountain in comfortably warm temperatures, when the cold winds started to blow we were now getting very cold. After making it to the blustery peak, we were lucky to find the cafe open and warm. We stopped for hot soup (for Kris) and red wine (for me) and warmed up nicely. There was a friendly Hungarian waiter who informed us that we had been especially lucky these past 3 days with temps in the mid 20’s C/ mid 70’s F…he said this was unusually warm for this time of year. He said the weather was changing today, the rains were coming, and the summer season up there was done, not reopening until the snows come in for skiing.
Now feeling toasty warm, and the skies were not overly threatening to rain, we made the decision to continue our round trip hiking trek vs. taking the funicular down or retracing our steps, which would have been quicker. This turned out to be a GREAT decision, I am happy to report. Once we got off the peak we were protected from the winds by the Alpine forest, the rains held off completely, and we came across the lovely Steinwenderhütte. This hütte had been newly purchased by Stefan, dressed fully in Alpine lederhosen, whom we met as we were admiring the views. Everyone who had been there earlier in the day had already left to catch the final funicular down the mountain so we had the place to ourselves. He was kind enough to give us a tour and I found the place to be charming and magical, Buddha statue and all.
We continued down the mountain completing the hike in good cheer!
