Since we are in the middle of our worldmappin winterchallenge I will tell you about an adventure my wife and I had in the middle of December. It had been almost two years ago, that we decided to escape the dark cold German daily life and finish the end of the year in Leogang, Austria with a lot more snow, wellness, and good food.
So we jumped in the car and drove all the way from Munich to Leogang, checked in at the hotel, and enjoyed ourselves a little bit.
If you know me a little bit you also have to know that I never go anywhere without checking out the surroundings - doesn´t matter how good the food is and how relaxing the wellness part of the hotel is. For me, I can enjoy both even more if during the day I go out and go on an adventure.
Normally in a place like that with so much snow I would go right away to the ski slope, putting on my snowboard and enjoy it all day. But Elena doesn´t know how to snowboard yet, so we tried something new. - We went hiking in the snow.
I checked out the local trails and decided real quick that the best option for us to try out would be the winter hiking trail at Asitzkopf Mountain. From the hotel, we had one free ride to the first stop kleiner Asitzkopf (small Asitzhead) and from there we would start the 1:45hrs hike to the top of the mountain großer Asitzkopf (big Asitzhead) and to the viewpoint before we would go back.
So much for the plan. That moment I discovered that Elena actually never gone on a lift in her life before 😅 - so it was real first for her, super exciting and a little scary - just like a good adventure has to be 😁.
The lift was pretty fast and in only about 20 minutes we already arrived at the first stop. - Our base and start for the hike. The weather was just perfect. The sun came out and the air was thin but fresh and nice!
We found the trail really quickly as it was signed haha - welcome to Austria, apparently they love to explain just as much as we Germans do. We just had to pass by the hut/restaurant/bar and were "right on track".
Actually, before this hike, I didn´t even know that snow hiking existed! When I first heard of it I was wondering who would freely hike up a snowy trail to enjoy the view, if at the same time it's much more fun to drive up with the lift and go down snowboarding... but ok, now I would make a new experience and try it out... - of course, it was just like expected!
Super hard, exhausting, and not as much fun as riding down ahhaha but on the other hand a great workout! Aaaand of course the view was just spectacular. First, we crossed a little forest surrounded by winter wonderland trees, and then we came to the platform of the mountain views down to the valley... sometimes a cloud passed right through us not permitting any view, but even that was great.
The higher we walked the tougher it got as the air was getting thinner and the clouds became more and more. - That means we hardly could enjoy any view. At one point we even thought of giving up... but then we decided to go on and finish this. I really wanted to do this and see also the other side of the mountain. So we went on and finally reached the top - the big Asnitzkopf at 1913m
It was just stunning. Almost the same moment when we reached the top, the clouds went to the side and the sun came out again. So we could enjoy the great view from all sides very much. We took a small break and decided to go even further. We passed the lift and came to a playground for kids, covered in snow. It must be very fun to play here as a kid with that view in summer!!!
Following that path, we arrived at the viewpoint, where we could look to all sides. Of course again there we could find a sign - a panorama picture even of all the mountains in front of us with name and altitude.
There we stayed for about 30 minutes taking a break, enjoying the sun and the view to the fullest. We were all by ourselves and it was just great. Now I could understand why people would do that in winter... to be all alone hahaha...
After a while of not moving so much it got cold again though, so we decided to go back. I was very happy that we only had to go back to big Asitzkopf and then the rest would be going downstairs... but as you can imagine it wasn´t as easy at it seems either, as the snow was pretty deep and slippery. We decided to half walk and half slide down. Of course, we were way faster on the way back than on the way up.
Going down we had the most fun. Of course, we fell down some times but it was all snow, so not dangerous at all.. and we had the perfect closing for playing around in it as well. We enjoyed the view and slid down catching each other, throwing snowballs, and laughing hard. We were so fast at the base station that I couldn´t believe it. All in all it took us way more than the promised 1:45hrs from that app haha, but it was totally worth it.
We decided to take one more break with that view at the bar and ordered some drinks to start the evening right before we went back down to the hotel where well-deserved wellness and great food were waiting for us.
And look 
It was the perfect ending for a perfect day <3
I hope you liked it and enjoy the winter challenge just as much as I do!
Cheers,
Liz