Speed Hiking

Emily and Sharon at the top of the Gutenberg hike

I was in the mood to get a good workout on sports day, so I decided to go on the speed hike with the cook Lota (pronounced Low-ta).  He and his wife are from Germany, but have been at Tauernhof for 2 years -- he as the cook and his wife Ana as the main person in the office. They are both so nice. Only one other girl, Emily, went on the hike with us. She's 17, but she and I became fast friends early on because we both have short blonde curly hair. We decided that she would be my little sister while we were here. She's so sweet, hugable, and just real. She's also in great shape. I heard legends of Lota's ability, but I wanted to try it. So I went hiking with two very fit people.

We went by car to Bernbirg, which is across the valley from Tauernhof. We parked by some beautiful houses and then started on our hike. Right off, the we hiked a good incline. They were ahead of me rather quickly, but I kept up a good pace behind them. The plan was to walk to the top of the mountain on the ridge. It would take us 1.5 hours to hike up and about an hour to hike down. As we started the climb, I noticed a sign stating how long it will take to get to the top. The sign said 2 hours and 14 minutes. So we were really going to have to move to get to the top. We hiked up pretty quickly to a spot where we could look back and see the valley. We continued on our hike and after about 20 minutes walked over the top of the treeline and the terrain became quite rocky with low brush. I had never hiked this high before. The stone path got narrower as we hiked up the hill. Lota was ahead of Emily by some distance and Emily ahead of me by some distance as well. I saw Lota come check on me at one point and asked how far it was to the top. I thought that he said 5 minutes (his English is hard to understand at times). Great, I thought. Wrong. I continued to hike the rest of the way up the side of the top of the mountain on a zig zag path which was covered with big boulders. We were up so high that there was snow.

As I continued on I kept thinking that the top was going to be any minute. I was challenged by the constand uphill hike and rocky ground. When I was very tired and alone, I came across some sheep on the hill. This of course made me smile. I was really high up at this point and here were these sheep literally in the middle of nowhere. All you could hear was the slight wind and the sound of one of the sheep who had a bell on its neck. They were really cute, especially the little baby one. I continued on and kept climbing up the winding path and couldn't believe how high up that we were going. Fortuneately, the paths are well marked here, so you just keep looking for the Austrian flag. On this trail the flags were painted on the rocks. After a seemingly long time, I saw Lota and Emily. They had only been waiting 10 mintues for me. We sat at the top and just soaked in the view. As Lota pointed across to the mountains on the other side, I realized that we were as high as the mountains that we were looking at. Lota pointed out the highest mountain in the area. We enjoyed a drink, snacks, and Lota gave thanks to God by praying in German. It was a bit cool up top, so after we fully rested, we headed back down the mountain. Easier than going uphill, but it was very technical. You needed to really watch your step so that you wouldn't slip on the stones, but it wasn't too bad. And Emily was kind enough to walk down with me and Lota stayed with us for awile. Emily and I had a very nice talk and arrived at the bottom of the hill exactly one hour later, for a total hike of 2 hours and 40 minutes.  What a hike.