Through Silberkarklamm
Austria – day 2 – hiking through the Silberkarklamm, which is a mountain pass featuring a wild brook meandering between the rocks. The path following the brook leads you up to the hut Silberkarhütte, wooden stairs are supporting your steps in some parts.
You have to pay a fee to enter the pass and if there are more people, you need to be patient, especially at the beginning when everybody starts climbing the first stairs. Later the line spreads and you can enjoy the atmosphere much better. We visited the pass on Monday morning and there were not many people except our group, I guess on weekends and afternoons the path is much bussier.
The pass is a beautiful place and although you need to make some effort on the way up, it is quite a comfortable hike, at least on a summer day with fairly good weather.
For those more skilled and adventurous, there are ferrata to try and enjoy…
The beauty of the views surrely depends on the amount of water and that must depend on the seasons… so I guess it might be interesting to revisit some other time.
The hut Silberkarhütte awaits you up there. It was closed on that day and the terrace with tables and benches was roped off so people were relaxing just outside of it, sitting on rocks and grass.
From the hut you can go either further up, or you can go the same way back or you can take the longer way round to get back to where you started from.
We were told the longer way back was steep by comfortable and we did not want to go back the same way so that was our choice. Well, the path was for most of the way not comfortable at all, leading up and down and being slippery on soggy roots and earth. Fortunatelly we had good walking boots but even with them we found some sections to be quite challenging. The challenges aside, it is a nice hike.
The hill in the photo below could be seen repeatedly along the way back and I was fascinated by it. Its round and bulky shape made it quite prominent in the mountain area and my sight was attracted to it again and again. You wouldn’t beleive how many photos of that hill I took along the way, from this angle and that…
Frankly, I do not understand why some things and places attract us in quite an overwhelming way when there seems to be no obvious reason for it… Any idea?
