6 months To See The World: Innsbruck and Tyrol

After Florence, we backtracked a little to Innsbruck, Austria.
It was the designated “hiking the Alps” location we finally chose because it still had easy access to Munich for Chris's flight home. So we landed at the Innsbruck train station in the afternoon and wandered around this Alpine town, prepping for the next day’s hike before enjoying a traditional German-style dinner. Innsbruck is a pristine, colorful ski town with a river running through it that brags about being the “capital of Tyrol.” Unfortunately it was shrouded in clouds that afternoon and the next day.

The Austrians have perfected hiking so that you can literally hike from hut to hut through the peaks. So we started as early as possible Thursday morning and climbed ~4400ft from Innsbruck to one of these called Pfeishutte. It is run like a rustic BnB and provides 3 course meals and bunk beds for hikers. We lucked out on timing and stayed there during the last week of the season. We ended up hiking through clouds all day, so there weren’t many views but we did see several mountain goats through the ethereal fog.

Pfeisshutte

We're going to climb this
. . . from the trailhead at ~6300ft

The next morning was fortunately bright and clear! Yay! And we set out to hike to Rumer Spitze (another ~3800ft gain) that turned into a very technical “hike”. Neither of us really appreciated what we were setting out for, but the views were worth it!! Then we hiked/climbed back down to the Hafelekarhaus (Cablecar station) and rode the cable car back Innsbruck and a well-deserved Italian dinner. I’m pretty proud that I stood at the top of one of the tallest peaks you can see from town.