Enjoying the last bit of summer

A while ago me and my friend

Hive account@gerryk decided to go hiking this fall. To make sure we have plenty of time we settled a date a few weeks ahead hoping the weather would be kind to us. Yesterday was the day we set out to scale our first mountain together.

Typical Austrian scene in the mountains.
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Since Hive account@gerryk has not hiked up a lot of mountains and to make sure we can take plenty of time for photography we agreed upon a three hours tour across the high plain of the mountain called Schneealpe.

Fall recolors the trees along the road up.
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At nine o'clock we started our one and a half hour drive to the mountain. The big advantage of Schneealpe is, you can drive up to 1400 meters and only need to hike up a few hundred meters until you hit the plateau.

It may not look like it but this plain is actually 1700 meters above the sea!
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With regards to the weather we couldn't have chosen a better day. It was the warmest day in weeks with an unusual amount of sunhours! However at 1700 meters altitude the temperatures weren't that warm. The stiff wind blew most of the time so I was wearing gloves and a hat to keep me warm.

You don't want to get stuck up here without firewood in the winter, so the locals keep huge stocks.
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After making it to the plateau were able to see the summit cross about 200 meters above. The plain was covered with dry grass some pools of clear freezing cold water and a few patches of snow. The biting wind brought the first smells of winter while we hiked up an exposed ridge towards the summit.

Hiking up the stony paths.
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Atop of the mountain it got even stronger you could literally lean against during the strong gusts.
It is said that on a day with perfect view you can see from Vienna to Salzburg from this peak. While the weather was very generous with us we did not have that good of a view, but still pretty stunning. Personally I just love standing on a summit being surrounded by mountains as far as the eye can reach.

At the summit with Hive account@gerryk looking for some good shots.
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Up here you can hike for more than 10 hours and without leaving the plateau.
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In Austria we have a very patriotic way to mark our hiking trails, we just put our flag on trees and stones along the way.
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The strong winds chased us off the peak rather fast, so not long after making it up we were once again on our way to the elevated plain. On the very edge of said plateau, atop a small hill our next destination was sitting in the sun: the Schneealpenhaus. It was already past midday so we were hoping for a late lunch. The hut was rather empty with only 3 other guests.

These streets are very popular among mountain bikers. I kind of understand why.
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I ate a "Kaspressknödelsuppe" which is a soup with a dumpling with cheese. A very local dish. When we sat down to eat our soups a big brown dog joined us. "Isak" is a huge, strong and very friendly German Longhair Pointer. Apart from the moment when he jumped on the table to get some of our soup he was just laying in the sun, enjoying getting petted by me.

This dog had the softest fur I ever touched. He might have been a model for a new shampoo line.
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Always watching over his territory.
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Golden fall scenes. Vision was not perfect hence the blue touch.
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Revitalised we started our decline back down to the parking lot.

All shots in this post were made with my Olympus OMD EM-10 Mark II with a 14-150mm lense in manual mode.

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!steemitworldmap 47.6833469 lat 15.5912452 long Hiking in Austria: Schneealpe D3SCR

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