September 05 –15, 2022

Districts Amstetten, Waidhofen/Ybbs, Scheibbs, Lilienfeld, all Lower Austria and District Bruck/Mur, Styria, all in Austria

Margit & Christian

Already planned for last year but postponed due to Margit’s injury we finally were able to do our hike across our beloved Mostviertel. And what an amazing journey it was for both of us through the tiniest villages and most beautiful landscapes! The first couple of days we enjoyed the smooth green hills of the Mostviertel Panorama Road with its tremendous views over the gentle wavy landscape to the Northeast and the mountains to the Southwest, hiking from the foot of Sonntagberg (“Sunday Mountain”) all the way to Hochkogel summit (711 m) and passing the sleepy but lovely village of St. Leonhard am Walde on the way, nicely located on the top of a hill. After having left the panorama road the trail kept the profile of smooth ups and downs, bringing us to the historical blacksmith village of Ybbsitz, followed by displays of the Eisenstraße (“Iron Road”) along the trail informing hikers and excursioners about long gone glory days of iron manufacturing in this region. Only on the fourth day the weather started to change midday. The rain started to pour down and did not stop the rest of the day so we found refuge in a small family-owned bed and breakfast in the tiny village of Maria Seesal, having dinner nearby at the very simple but charming local pub “Jagawirt”. The following day we continued up to Hamotalm and down to Lunz where we were surprised by heavy rainfall again. So, we checked into a small guest house on the trail out of the village and stayed for two nights. We managed a roundtrip hike to the Maißzinken summit (1075 m) on the day in between though (got wet again but we caught some rays of sun as well). After two nights we moved on to the next village by bus due to more continuous rainfall and checked into a lovely pub in Maierhöfen (Pöllingerwirt) for two nights. The weather became better the morning after but there was no time to relax as the upcoming three days where the hardest on our tour since we reached mountainous territory. On day 8 we hiked a roundtrip trail to Mount Kleiner Ötscher (1552 m), followed by the tour’s highlight, the conquest of Mount Ötscher (1893 m) on day 9, which was the toughest by far since we literally climbed it via the famous Rauher Kamm (“Rough Ridge”). Staying at the lovely refuge hut Vorderötscher after that, we concluded our "mountain days" with the hike to Mount Gemeindealpe (1626 m) on day 10, reaching our final destination Mariazell, probably THE pilgrimage hotspot in Austria, hence very touristic and busy – the absolute contrary compared to all those tiny, sleepy villages we experienced all the days before. On the next and final day we concluded our tour with a simple hike to Bürgeralpe (1270 m) before taking train and bus back home to Ruprechtshofen, very happy how much we enjoyed our time together and very content with what we achieved on our tour.