Mountain Climbing

Three weekends ago I went on an exchange student outing organized by the university. This was the first organized outing that I've participated in since I first arrived here. For a long time I didn't want to participate in these events, which have included ghost walks, brewery tours, and visits to spas. They cost money, which I don't have alot of, and I figured that if I really wanted to go somewhere or do something I could do it on my own.

Well that didn't happen much. So when I found out last week that the next student outing was a hiking trip through the Bärenschützklamm (a gorge) and up the Hochlantsch ( a mountain), I jumped at the chance. There is plenty of beautiful architecture and art and culture around here, but the one thing that I really HAD to do before leaving was go hiking and see the countryside.We took a train from the Graz Hauptbahnhof (train station) north to a small city called Mixnitz. This is where the walking began. And this was a day full of walking. My knees and legs were sore for several days later from it, but the sights were definitely worth the pain. Mixnitz lies at the foot of the Hochlantsch, and the Bärenschützklamm flows from somewhere in the mountain, too. Since I didn't look at a map the whole day (believe it or not!), I don't have a better geographic description than that. We walked though the city and out of it to the trailhead.

I really didn't know what to expect from this trip. I was told we were leaving Graz at 9am and getting back around 8pm. We were supposed to bring food and raingear, which I did. Besides that I had no idea if there would be places to stop and rest or toilets. What I really didn't know was how much time we would spend walking.We climbed for a about an hour until we reached the entrance to the Bärenschützklamm gorge. This costed 3 Euros to enter, and almost entirely consisted of walking on these wooden catwalks through the gorge. It was quite beautiful here, but I didn't enjoy it that much. As you can see from the photo, there were alot of people out hiking yesterday, and our group alone was 25 people. The catwalks were narrow so you couldn't pass someone who was stopped. It was difficult to enjoy the scenery because I felt I had to keep walking to not hold up the line, and to walk you had to always look at your feet or you would slip and get your foot stuck between the rungs.After getting out of the gorge, we came to a lodge where you rest up and buy some food and beer to keep your strength up for the long climb ahead. I was pretty surprised to see this, because we had been climbing for several hours and I felt certain that we were above any further signs of civilization. Shows how little I know about mountains. We rested for a while here and ate lunch. After a half hour we got up and started climbing more. We had a loooong way to go still...Before long we reached the final lodge where you could rest before your assault on the mountain peak. Our group, however, didn't want to rest. We were so close the top, you could see the cross they use to mark the top of the mountain! (Look very closely at the top of the picture) How far away can something be when it is within your visual range? Quite far, I found out. It took us better than an hour and a half to finally reach the peak, and this was not simple level ground walking. Rocks, lots of them. Steep trails, tree roots and......snow! As you can see I was fascinated by it. This picture wasn't taken that far up; we encountered even bigger patches as we continued.
Yes, I'm pointing at something else. We made it to the top! It felt great to climb all the way up myself, but seeing everyone else in our group who it made to the top before made me feel like a bit of a wuss. But hey, the view was beautiful, if somewhat hazy:After another rest and a few group photos (which I don't have copies of), we started back down the mountain. This turned out to be much harder than going up. All that deceleration wreaked havoc on my knees, which were already sore from the trip up. I slowly fell behind all the other youngsters, and by the time I reached the town was in serious pain. Every time I stopped to rest though, my knees stiffened up, which made starting again muc more difficult. So I just trudged stiff-legged like Frankenstein through town until I made to the train station. It was a great trip and I really had fun, but next time I will try some muscle stretches so my knees don't act up on me again.

This week I will be traveling to Hungary and Vienna, so there won't be any posts for a while. When I get back, though, I should have some great pictures. Have a good week!