Piesendorf to somewhere between Lend and Schwarzach

August 22, 2018

The hills are alive but my legs are not

I had 3 main missions today: 1. get an Austrian sim card for my phone so I could actually research and call hotels/pensions/guest houses, 2. take a cable car up one of the mountains overlooking Zell am See, and 3. visit the Kitzlochklamm. Read on to see if I accomplished any of my mission.

Let's first start with last night's hotel in Piesendorf. I still haven't the slightest idea what its name was, but it was a nice one. The view from the hotel window was rather nice, it was clean, it was updated, it was quiet, and they had a fairly good breakfast. Not quite as good as the hotel in Krimml, but certainly up to the standard of a quality breakfast.

With a full stomach I headed for Zell am See. There was a brief detour around some new road works but it was well signed and pretty short. Zell am See is just as lovely as I recall it being 2 years ago. The path to the city center follows along the train tracks and while the section through Schüttdorf isn't exactly special, the views along the lake make up for that.

I was fortunate enough to happen to find a street crossing the train tracks that dumped me right into the center of town next to the cellphone shop.

The young gentleman there had me set up with a sim card with something like 1000 minutes of talk time and I think 4gb of data for €9.90 in the space of a few minutes. Internet access so far has been pretty solid. The real test will be in 2 days when I hit the Enns Radweg and the more remote areas in Gesäuse Nationalpark over the weekend. Mission #1 accomplished.

On to mission#2. I rode uphill, crossed a busy street, and rode uphill a bit more until I reached the valley station for the Cityxpress cable car (Seilbahn.) After locking up my bike and loading up my backpack with camera gear and the food is bought for lunch I took the cable car up to around 1400ft.

The signage for the hiking paths was not exactly the best I've seen. I ended up doing some wandering in the woods before finally getting out my gps bike map which also shows hiking trails. With that in hand I was able to find my way to the official trail and finally to a little lake, presumably man-made, overlooking the valley and the Zeller See.

The lake has been set up as a swimming destination with a kiddy pool and everything. It was actually pretty impressive and appears to be a big destination for hikers in the area as well as families with kids. Had I known it was a bathing destination I would have brought my towel with. It was actually quite hot up there in the sun.

I ate my lunch with a view out over the valley and across to a range of mountain peaks including the Kitzstein glacier. It was a lunchtime view I'd gladly have on a regular basis.

My lunch view of the glacier across the valley

Having accomplished my plan to get photos of the lake and the glacier I headed back to the cable car. I briefly considered hiking further, but given the extensive hike yesterday and my desire to visit the Kitzlochklamm, I opted to head back to the valley.

Heading out of Zell am See towards Bruck was an experience. The path was almost entirely unpaved and heavily traveled. Once I got to Bruck I had some confusion over the trail. Apparently there is now an alternate trail that bypasses Bruck. However, it wasn't on my map and I didn't fancy getting lost so I did a small bit of backtracking and followed the official route.

I didn't look over the map much prior to heading out today. Apparently I've forgotten all the hills between Zell am See AND Taxenbach aside from the one going up from the train station. There were several notable hills. There was also more rough gravel and one very large building site that had to be ridden through before Taxenbach. This year I actually made it up all the hills on my bike, but it took all of my smallest gears to do it. I also got barked at and chased briefly by a dog. I discovered I still had the energy to ride fast!

Looking back at the valley after one of the climbs

In Taxenbach I was able to locate the street to the Klamm. However, as I was pulling down the steep hill I realized that I'd have to get myself and my bike back up the hill! I ended up pulling into the next parking lot I found and locking up there so I could walk the rest of the way back to the falls.

If you are underway by bike on this trail and want to visit a gorge I would strongly advise you to visit the Liechtenstein Klamm and skip the Kitzloch Klamm. Getting down there is hard enough. Once you've accomplished that you then have the steep klamm trails and 385 steps (according to the sign at the top of the steps). The views were ok, but the Liechtenstein Klamm is definitely more impressive. The €6 admission also seemed a bit steep and requiring you to scan your admission card in order to exit is a little weird in my opinion.

Note the stairs going up the cliff face. That's the trail.

The oft photographed bridge across the Klamm

After walking back up to the parking lot, I decided I'd try to ride up the hill. Pushing is a pain and I really have no desire to do it if I can avoid it. You won't believe this, but I actually was able to ride the hill. Once at the top I discovered their welcome sign that said the grade was 15%. If that's 15%, I don't want to know what a steeper hill would be like!

Note the little sign on the right side that says 15% grade

While in the parking lot I made a couple calls to hotels. I knew there was a hotel at the bottom of the big nasty hill right before Schwarzach. An Internet search turned up the fact that they offer a special lower price for cyclists which includes breakfast. They had a room available and I figured being at the bottom of the hill and starting with fresher legs would be a very good idea.

The ride of Taxenbach was quite interesting. Most of it was downhill starting with a stretch on path along the Bundesstraße. The section skirting the edge of the cliff while the Bundesstraße headed through a tunnel was particularly nice. The stretch where there was no path and you had to ride with traffic was not nice, especially since I hadn't gotten my rear blinker out yet. From there the route headed down down down into the valley to the old Bundesstraße which is now mainly used by cyclists. Here I did fish out my rear blinker and started the lovely coast down the road. The scenery in this part of the valley is exceptional. The mountain cliff faces draw ever closer with the river right next to the road.

Looking down at the bottom of the hill where I came from

My favorite section of the old Bundesstraße

Nearing the end of the section I was stopped to take some pictures when I encountered a cyclist headed the opposite direction. He had apparently just rode the nasty hill section. He said it was awful and he was now exhausted completely. That made me very glad I was only going to the turnoff for that hill and not up it. At least that's what I thought.

The path finally left the Bundesstraße and inexplicably headed uphill. Steeply uphill. So steep I finally got off and started pushing up a hill for the first time in this trip. The hill just kept going and going. I rode a couple small sections, but then I'd get exhausted and have to walk again. The path did some twisting and turning and finally I came around a corner and saw hotel Posauner. Which was also up a hill. And behind it is the first hill I get to ride in the morning. It also looks steep.

The valley where I was happily riding and now was not so happily pushing my bike uphill

It looks prettier going downhill, except I was still pushing uphill

The restaurant attached to the hotel made an excellent plate of grilled veggies for me with a tasty mixed salad. There is breakfast included and since it's a 3 star hotel I'm expecting a very good breakfast. Then I get to return to riding hills.

All in all today was a mixed bag. The good sections of trail were really really good. The bad sections were downright nasty. I didn't put in that many miles, but the 2300 ft of elevation gain was tough. I should also add that my hotel room has a lovely view of the ever so busy Bundesstraße which means I get to listen to traffic all night (the road runs by the front of the hotel.) Earplugs cut down on hopefully enough of the noise for me to sleep well.

Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 64 miles (103 km)

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