[Hiking]: Bärenkopf 1991 m // Achensee (Austria, Tirol)
Heyho!~ 
So, here it's me telling you once again that my Italy photos will come soon.
But as I keep doing hiking day trips, I'm busy posting those photos first.
I don't know what happened, but maybe all my complaining about the weather helped. This was now the third weekend in a row with good hiking weather!
Sunny and around 12°C (well, in the mountains it was down to -2°C at times). No snow yet on the peaks below 2000 m, so a lot of mountains to choose from.
I always wanted to visit Achensee in Austria. It's really not far away from here, but it's supposed to be very touristy, usually.
Going on a weekend would have been stressful to say the least.
That's why I spontaneously decided to take a day off on Friday as the weather looked brilliant.
I figured that MAYBE due to Covid, partial lockdown in Germany AND Austria, the fact that it was a weekday and no school holidays, I could be lucky.
And I was. I almost had the entire mountain to myself. What a GREAT feeling!!!!!
I arrived at the almost empty parking lot around 9:30 a.m.
It's pretty much a 1.5h drive from where I live.
The road leads through a "soft" country border, meaning you don't even notice you've entered another country. No barrier, no fence, no controls.
An elderly man at the parking lot asked me if I now have to go into quarantine. He saw that my car had a German number plate.
I explained to him about the 24h rule.
So, for those of you who're not familiar with how things currently are in the EU when crossing borders:
If you come back from a declared risk region (and pretty much all of the EU now is such a region) you have to go into quarantine for 10-14 days (depending on where you live).
However, there's an exception at least in Bavaria and Austria (not sure about other regions) that if you cross borders and only stay LESS than 24h, you don't have to go into quarantine.
It makes sense. There are a few places you can only reach by crossing the border although you actually want to drive from place A (in your own country) to place B (in your own country).
Jungholz is such a place, for example.
For those people it would be insane if they had to go into quarantine. To name just one example. :)
So yes, I've been to Austria, but only for a few hours, so I didn't have to go into quarantine afterwards.
Needless to say that I basically had zero contacts during the whole time. I came by car and only crossed path with a handful of hikers that day.
Anyway, my goal of that day was Bärenkopf (1991 m) from where you have stunning views onto Achensee.
The starting point was right next to the lake, so you start at ground level.
Needless to say that there was quite a bit of altitude difference to overcome.
It was perfect hiking weather. It had about 9°C at the lake, but towards the mountain top it had minus degrees and everything was still frozen.
There was also some snow left here and there.
But as you can see the trails were mostly dry and so it was a really nice hike.
Getting closer towards the top, already enjoying lovely views of Achensee.
This is the spot where I took my lunch break ... and I also took a shadow selfie. XD ....
I kind of understand why it's so popular and touristy, although there surely are other nice places as well.
I guess this one has been hyped a lot on social media in recent years.
And after about 3h of hiking I finally reached the top.
Luckily there were a few people there, barely had seen anyone during the hike.
So, we could all take photos of each other. ^^; ....
That's the view of Achensee you get from the peak at almost 2000 m.
Can't believe I started my hike from down there.
If you look either way, there's mountains everywhere. I didn't take a panorama shot, but I guess you get the idea.
And then it was time to descend again. As you can see, there's really NOBODY!
I took a different way back, although only part of the trail was different. The remaining path was the same I hiked up. :)
There were also some nice views while hiking down.
As you can see the trees above have already lost all their needles and leaves.
All in all it took me about 6h including my lunch break and photo stops.
The days are extremely short already, so if you do longer hikes, you have to start very early.
I'm not an early bird at all and from spring to late summer, I refuse to get up early for a hike (unless it's like a 9h hike or so...).
It's not necessary because the days are so long.
But now it gets dark around 4:30 p.m.!!!!
It was such a lovely day. I'm glad I took the day off.
Someone on Instagram did the same trip a day later, so on Saturday, and she told me there were barely any people as well. Maybe taking a day off wasn't necessary after all, but whatever! ;)
On my way back I did a photo stop at the Sylvenstein Dam. It's in Germany shortly after the border to Austria.
The sun had already set at that point. I also did a photo stop there in the morning, but it was so foggy / cloudy that I couldn't see anything.
I came home around 6 p.m., had a quick dinner and prepared for my next hike on Saturday.
Photos will follow soon!~
I hope you had a nice weekend as well!
Bye~chuu
So, here it's me telling you once again that my Italy photos will come soon.
But as I keep doing hiking day trips, I'm busy posting those photos first.
I don't know what happened, but maybe all my complaining about the weather helped. This was now the third weekend in a row with good hiking weather!
Sunny and around 12°C (well, in the mountains it was down to -2°C at times). No snow yet on the peaks below 2000 m, so a lot of mountains to choose from.
I always wanted to visit Achensee in Austria. It's really not far away from here, but it's supposed to be very touristy, usually.
Going on a weekend would have been stressful to say the least.
That's why I spontaneously decided to take a day off on Friday as the weather looked brilliant.
I figured that MAYBE due to Covid, partial lockdown in Germany AND Austria, the fact that it was a weekday and no school holidays, I could be lucky.
And I was. I almost had the entire mountain to myself. What a GREAT feeling!!!!!
I arrived at the almost empty parking lot around 9:30 a.m.
It's pretty much a 1.5h drive from where I live.
The road leads through a "soft" country border, meaning you don't even notice you've entered another country. No barrier, no fence, no controls.
An elderly man at the parking lot asked me if I now have to go into quarantine. He saw that my car had a German number plate.
I explained to him about the 24h rule.
So, for those of you who're not familiar with how things currently are in the EU when crossing borders:
If you come back from a declared risk region (and pretty much all of the EU now is such a region) you have to go into quarantine for 10-14 days (depending on where you live).
However, there's an exception at least in Bavaria and Austria (not sure about other regions) that if you cross borders and only stay LESS than 24h, you don't have to go into quarantine.
It makes sense. There are a few places you can only reach by crossing the border although you actually want to drive from place A (in your own country) to place B (in your own country).
Jungholz is such a place, for example.
For those people it would be insane if they had to go into quarantine. To name just one example. :)
So yes, I've been to Austria, but only for a few hours, so I didn't have to go into quarantine afterwards.
Needless to say that I basically had zero contacts during the whole time. I came by car and only crossed path with a handful of hikers that day.
Anyway, my goal of that day was Bärenkopf (1991 m) from where you have stunning views onto Achensee.
The starting point was right next to the lake, so you start at ground level.
Needless to say that there was quite a bit of altitude difference to overcome.
It was perfect hiking weather. It had about 9°C at the lake, but towards the mountain top it had minus degrees and everything was still frozen.
There was also some snow left here and there.
But as you can see the trails were mostly dry and so it was a really nice hike.
Getting closer towards the top, already enjoying lovely views of Achensee.
This is the spot where I took my lunch break ... and I also took a shadow selfie. XD ....
I kind of understand why it's so popular and touristy, although there surely are other nice places as well.
I guess this one has been hyped a lot on social media in recent years.
And after about 3h of hiking I finally reached the top.
Luckily there were a few people there, barely had seen anyone during the hike.
So, we could all take photos of each other. ^^; ....
That's the view of Achensee you get from the peak at almost 2000 m.
Can't believe I started my hike from down there.
If you look either way, there's mountains everywhere. I didn't take a panorama shot, but I guess you get the idea.
And then it was time to descend again. As you can see, there's really NOBODY!
I took a different way back, although only part of the trail was different. The remaining path was the same I hiked up. :)
There were also some nice views while hiking down.
As you can see the trees above have already lost all their needles and leaves.
All in all it took me about 6h including my lunch break and photo stops.
The days are extremely short already, so if you do longer hikes, you have to start very early.
I'm not an early bird at all and from spring to late summer, I refuse to get up early for a hike (unless it's like a 9h hike or so...).
It's not necessary because the days are so long.
But now it gets dark around 4:30 p.m.!!!!
It was such a lovely day. I'm glad I took the day off.
Someone on Instagram did the same trip a day later, so on Saturday, and she told me there were barely any people as well. Maybe taking a day off wasn't necessary after all, but whatever! ;)
On my way back I did a photo stop at the Sylvenstein Dam. It's in Germany shortly after the border to Austria.
The sun had already set at that point. I also did a photo stop there in the morning, but it was so foggy / cloudy that I couldn't see anything.
I came home around 6 p.m., had a quick dinner and prepared for my next hike on Saturday.
Photos will follow soon!~
I hope you had a nice weekend as well!
Bye~chuu