I've just returned from my second long walking adventure of the summer, a 115-mile 7-day hike along the Donau (Danube) from Passau to Linz. S, meanwhile, is on the final leg of a 5-day bike tour through the Oetztal in the Alps with his cycling buddy S. I think this means I have two undistracted hours left to finish blogging about the last four days of our Walking-to-Italy hike.
So where were we...
We headed out of Mieders along the Pilgerweg (pilgrim's path) toward Maria Waldrast (Mary Rest-in-the-Woods), a pilgrimage monastery that dates to the 15th century. As the legend goes, two boys from Matrei discovered an image of Mary growing out of a tree trunk on the mountain. It was hacked out and brought down to Matrei, and after a few years, a monastery was built near the site of the old tree trunk, and the image was brought back up the mountain. The monastery was expanded in the 17th c., reached its heyday in the 18th c., was closed and sold by Joseph II in 1785, bought back by the monks in the 19th c., abandoned again during the Nazi reign, and started up again in 1945. The miraculous image--which it didn't occur to us to look for--was moved around over the years, but returned to Maria Waldrast in 1945.
As we trekked upward, we passed a sled track, with a bridge over it to prevent collisions.
We hiked the whole way up, but there are other ways to get up mountains in Austria...
The Pilgerweg overlaps with the Quellenweg (spring-source route). Here, according to the signage, is a stone--the Marienstein--where, as legend reports, Mary herself rested for a bit on her way up the hill to Waldrast, and she left her footprint in the stone as a sign that "Mary was here." Goodness, the things we learn by hiking...
We went up uppity up...
...and saw a lot of zonked out cows. Like, not just lying down, but with their heads on the ground too. I didn't know cows did that--would've thought it indicated serious illness, had we not seen cows doing that in multiple fields across multiple days...
At last, Maria Waldrast...
After a short break, we decided to change up our planned route: there was a local maximum elevation to conquer, so we set about conquering it.
Holy cow(s)!
More cows...
Looking back at Maria Waldrast (just left of center):
We zigzagged our way up on a scree-covered trail...
...then passed over a saddle onto a green bald...
...then continued up...
...and up...
...to the Blaser Huette. Because what's a long hike up without cake at the top? There used to be a hut at the very top of the peak, but it was destroyed in a storm, so they rebuilt it slightly below the summit.
Nom nom. The flowers on the whipped cream on S's cake are from the summit, dried and sugared.
Close-up, cuz they were so pretty:
In case you're wondering, S is sitting on a spinny stool surrounded by maps naming all the surrounding peaks. But I love that this photo makes him look like he's a toddler.
Then we headed down down down into Steinach:
Our hotel for the night was right under the Brenner Autobahn, so we still had a ways to descend...
Farmers bring their cows up the mountains to graze for the summer, and the cows sometimes need containing. Assorted strategies are in place to ensure hikers can still access trails...
The cows in this field were particularly interested in humans as salt licks.
At long last, we reached the underside of the Autobahn. Still another half mile to the hotel...
After resting up a bit, we sought out dinner across the river. Perhaps because of the rain, Steinach seemed a little depressed: lots of concrete, not a lot of people.
Truffle hunting, we peeked into St. Erasmus just as folks were arriving for choir practice. On the way back from Worlds-Most-Depressing-Pizza-Restaurant, we stopped in again to catch a bit of the rehearsal. Three notes in, an error led to laughs and a restart, but those three notes were enough to serve as a concert program: Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, for choir, strings, and organ. Lovely.
Rain accompanied us on our way back to the Autobahn underpass.
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Ta da! 13.9 miles hiked, ~4,800 ft elevation gain, ~4,100 ft descent.
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