09.09.2008 Reschen and Reschen Alm

From Stilftser Joch you can easily drive north to the Reschen Pass. The little village is known for the church's clock tower that is the only remaining building from another little village, that had been flooded. 

Have a coffee in the Cafe across the street and then drive around the lake a bit and start the hike to the Reschen Alm. It's a nice and easy hike and at the end you have a great view down on the lake and the clock tower. And well, the food is , as ususal, VERY good at the Alm.

I do not take any responsibility for outdated, false or incorrect information. You should not expect that all information is 100% correct or fits your needs if you travel your own way on similar trips.

Day 1 - Stilftser Joch - 3170m

09-09-2008 Stilftser Joch

We had a perfect day with unbelievable clear weather - a perfect day to drive on one of the most spectacular roads to the famous Stilftser Joch.

From Merano it's about 70km's , but you need to take into account that this road (the last part up to the Joch) is quite special, so drive slowly. (you can see the road on the picture below)

You can use your bike or car (well, make a guess what is harder) and drive up to the Joch at 2760m. Then take the (expensive) Gondola up to 3170m. 

There is a glacier where people can ski all year long but you can clearly see the climate changes already if you look at the glacier.

Down at 2760 m again you have plenty of choice to purchase souvenirs and expensive but special "Bratwurst"

I do not take any responsibility for outdated, false or incorrect information. You should not expect that all information is 100% correct or fits your needs if you travel your own way on similar trips.

2500 km's further south ....

Well, we changed the planned location towards :

Italy, South Tirol - so just a 2500 km further south location. :-)

We quickly searched the Internet for a nice, not too expensive apartment and booked online. We ended up at Siggi's apartment in Partschins, a little village west of Merano, in an area called "Vinschgau".

It's surrounded by mountains, has easy access to hundreds of hiking tours from blue (easy) to black (hard).
The appartment was 80€ per night (high season) , had it's own kitchen and plenty of place for 2 people. (3 would have been fine as well)

Get one of the "Tabacco" topographic maps (number 11 for the Mearno area) and you have plenty of choices for great hiking tours. There are many huts (Alm's) on the trails with great food where you even can stay overnight (make reservation upfront!)

There are many well known long distance trails , e.g. the E5 trail as well as Route 24 (Merano high mountain circle - 5-7 days) but we chose to do nice day hike's.

The weather was great and we had views like this one below: so we quickly felt like we did the right thing with changing plans. (Hey, we still like Sweden and plan to do the Kungsleden)

Note: I do not take any responsibility for outdated, false or incorrect information. You should not expect that all information is 100% correct or fits your needs if you travel your own way on similar trips.

A last minute travel plan change - Kungsleden has to wait

Hi, my name is Rainer

Well, this is my first entry about the different trips i made and still plan to make in the future. And it starts with a last minute change ...
I always rejected to start blogging - having a webpage and photos uploaded to picasa - why put out even more of my private things? But thinking changes and i saw a nice blog from a friend about his trip through India. Instead of writing emails and so on to friends, it's so much more convenient to post a little update from time to time to your blog ...Ok, so i'll try to get this started now.
For the first time, i planned to do a hike with my girlfriend in the northern parts of Sweden. You know, starting 300 km north of the arctic circle in Abisko and hiking parts of the famous Kungsleden trail. (Goggle for "Lapporten" to find pictures about this great area)
We wanted to carry everything from the tent to the food, allowing for reloading some chocolate bars at the huts only. We had everything packed from the milk powder to the outdoor bread, the backpack weight was 20kg and 17kg.As usual we started to do some training the weeks before with hiking every weekend starting with no backpack and ended up with hiking 25km trips with a heavy back pack. Ok, so we felt ready but the weather conditions up in Sweden changed dramatically for the planned trip.Well, if you go there you need to consider the best time. If you like Mosquito, then you have plenty of choice, but we thought we are clever and start at the 3rd of September to avoid them.
Obviously it can get cold there at this time of the year and rain is always an option from time to time. But the forecast was changing to constant rain and snow, 0 to -4 degree Celsius for the next 10 days.

We discussed this like:

Hey, ok we can make it! It will probably be no fun nor will it be relaxing, but we can make it!

But that was not the reason for us going up there, spending our limited vacation days of the year for hiking under constant bad conditions.
So we dropped the plan (let's try next year and a bit earlier) and started to quickly come up with another plan. 

A change from a rough  adventure trip towards  relaxed hiking in the mountains, great food supply, nice weather but still a fantastic nature ...

more next time ...

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