At the summit of the Hinteres Sonnwendjoch, I wait at dawn for the sunrise over the Kaiser Mountains in Tyrol. This would be the last hot summer’s day of the year. Just a few days later, around a metre of snow fell here and on the Ackernalm with the first cold front, ushering in autumn quite abruptly and intensely. Read more
Oimzeit (alpine pasture time) is the most wonderful time – that’s what it says on one of the alpine huts, and I couldn’t agree more. After the cattle drive at the end of last summer, I visited Ackernalm again for the first time this year. Yellow blooming globeflowers shone on the lush green meadows. The cowbells’ jingling can be heard from afar, forming a constant backdrop of sound. In the evening, I sat on the Grabenbergalm below the Fuchsloch in the last rays of the evening sun, looking out at the Schinder, Halserspitz, and Blaubergkamm behind the Brandenberger Ache.
As I set off in the dark of early morning from the car park on the Ackernalm to experience the sunrise on Veitsberg (1,787 m), a car pulled up beside me. A tired young couple in traditional dress wound down the passenger window. A friend had gone missing from the party, and they asked if I had seen a young woman in a dirndl. The music, the laughter, the arriving and departing guests of the celebration at the mountain inn – the Almkirta – had been audible all night. She hadn’t passed my roof tent, and I hadn’t encountered her anywhere else. As I later found out, she had found a safe and cosy hideaway with a handsome young man. Read more
On the drive to Ackernalm in the Bavarian Prealps, the wide thunderstorm front approaching from the west caught up with me already in the Alpine foothills. Lightning flashed and heavy showers accompanied me for the remaining kilometres of the journey via Bayrischzell, the Ursprung Pass and finally up the toll road to the alm. Read more
How often have I hiked across flowering alpine meadows or been accompanied by the sound of cowbells on my treks, all while longing for untouched wilderness. I gradually overlooked what diverse and ecologically rich landscapes human cultivation in the Alpine region has created over the centuries. Read more
Last Comments