Holiday in Austria, Part III: The Predigstuhl

Before rejecting it as too long, I had considered entitling this episode as "Tackling the Predigstuhl," but then the thought immediately came to mind that, in truth, it tackled us. T. had spotted this mountain in her guide book and was eager to conquer it, and I was eager for hiking in general and even had my eye on the Traunstein, which is a taller peak that towers over the Traunsee like a great, barren tooth and had been visible from the highway for a long time. (As it turns out, ignorance — even egregious ignorance — was bliss.)

Anyway, on Saturday I woke up before 6 a.m. and spent some time writing and ambling around the town. Every quarter hour the Protestant church struck, once for :15, twice for :30, thrice for :45, and four times for the hour. Mingled with these four times there would come the more melodious and deeper tones of the Catholic church to ring out the hour properly. The light was still an early morning blue, though the sky was visible and the details of the mountains, as well as the fog that rose from beyond the railway tracks, were beautifully clear. A handful of birds twittered or chirped at various distances and the subdued roar and rush of the creek swelled from its hidden course. As the day grew brighter the clouds were tinged with apricot, the bird and ambient noises gathered in number until the creek was no longer audible, and the visibility even worsened a little as the mist began to rise from the trees and pastures and the valley. I could have used more sleep in lieu of it but it was a nice experience.

Mama and I went grocery-shopping and it was great to be in a generous-sized store again instead of the tiny Plus across the street. We bought Julius Meinl coffee, "Marillen" (the Austrian term for apricots, which are otherwise known as "Aprikosen" in German) marmalade, Gmunden milk and butter, buns, etc. Back at the cottage the others gradually woke up and we made a meal of it. I even had coffee (I normally avoid it because it feels too much like reckless tinkering with the nervous system — and yes, I am quite uptight).

Then Papa drove us up the slope of the Predigstuhl as far as a gravel road, which was not such a simple procedure because the Joseph-Putz-Straße which he had wanted to ascend was essentially hiding from us, and we kept seeing cars passing along a road further up the mountain but we couldn't get at it. One thing that set my teeth on edge in Austria is the tightly winding roads that are so narrow that literally only one car can pass at a time, and the road we eventually took was of this order. But we tumbled out of the car and waved goodbye to Papa cheerfully, and then set out on our merry way up the slope.

A little while later, especially once we were ascending a hiking path proper, our way was no longer so merry. I was particularly out of shape; aside from the morning when we started on our trip to Austria, I think I hadn't even set foot outside our apartment for over a week. My legs were sturdy and the will-power (viz. grim endurance and the determination not to lag or whine) was there in spades, nor did I sweat much, but I was almost hyperventilating in the effort to get air into my lungs. Then we strayed onto the wrong path. But our good mood held, and by the time we had stopped plodding along the rich, deep, needle-strewn ground and were passing along the sunny stretch of the Ewige Wand the progress was easier. I was pleased when I looked over the edge of the path and contemplated the forest and rockslides far below us without a hint of vertigo. On the other hand, the same flexible steely ropes that formed the railing of the path also served as climbers' guiding-ropes out onto the sheer rock faces, and though in films like Cliffhanger the thought of such climbing never bothered me, when one actually sees one of those slopes in person the realization strikes that it is truly mad. Still, the views were good, and Bad Goisern and the Hallstätter See, along with the surrounding mountains, were neatly spread out before us. (There was even what looked like wild oregano flowering on the thin strip between the railing and the precipice.) Anyway, the path also led through tunnels which, though a trifle dank, were interesting, too.

A long while later, travelling ever higher through the trees and tiny blueberry bushes, over the white chalky stones and exposed roots, past the anthills and past the sunlit observation points where the wildflowers bloomed among the tall tanned grasses, we found what appeared to be, in the absence of proper signage to the contrary, the peak of the Predigstuhl. It was marked, however, in a lacklustre triangle of the same red and white paint that had been applied to the trees and stones to mark out the route earlier. As Mama remarked, the "peak experience" (or, in her German, "Gipfelerlebnis") was not there. Exhausted though we were, and irritated by the woodpaths which we had followed (the only other proper hiking we've done is in East Sooke Park, back in Canada, and there it was much harder to stray onto spurious paths), we walked on down the slope a little to try to find signs.

There we saw an even higher mound rising before us, of whose identity we were unsure. After a while the certainty dawned on us that this was the proper Predigstuhl. At first we had no intention of continuing, but by now it was a point of pride to reach the true summit. So we descended the lower hill which we had so painfully ascended, then ascended the higher hill. The path was broad and clear, and we cheerily took it through the patch of brush, but then it forked and there was no sign which prong was the proper one. We went to the right.