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Thursday, 31st of May 2018 - official holiday in Austria and a wonderful weather for a long cycling day or trail running or hiking. I did all three of them, including taking a lot of wonderful pictures again ...... Hot, sunny & violent long rain starting at about 15:30 and still being on the mountain with Marty. He unfortunately does not run :-(, so it was also a patience exercise for me today .....
And here the story in short texts and many pictures.
I left home at 10:15 and rode straight to Marty along the Zeller See Lake, Maishofen, Kammerhof, Gerling, descending left to Saalfelden. I missed the right path due to speed and joy, so after about 2 km I had to turn back and take the right path uphill through the forest and after 21 km (instead of 17,5 km) and almost one hour riding I reached Marty's house close to Ritzensee in Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer. He waited for me with cold red melone (Thank you!) and then we drove out with his LandRover car to Biberg for about 10 minutes or so.

He wanted to walk on the classical forest road, I said: "Let's take the forest path." He said: "Oh no, I never was on it, let's go on the forest road, it is safer." I said: "Now you have the chance to try something different, come on!" and I started right instead of left. He followed me then.

Salt for the cows, happy cows :-)

The path was unfortunately not marked, so after about less then ten minutes it got lost and we had to abruptly descent to the classical forest road, as he wanted. He commented, of course: "I told you! What brought us to struggle through the forest and finally to have to go back to the road I said from the beginning?"

Oh, Marty .... just drop it! You complain always! A little bit of adventure will not kill you!

I hardly tried to be nice and patiencely :-) as I didn't want to ruin my entire day! After a while, he stopped to complain and comment over all things like: "Oh, look, a car is coming! I knew it!!!! A lot of dust now, shit!!!!!" - for me became clearer, next time I go alone, I do not need such a negative energy around me!

On Biberg runs a summer toboggan (1,6 km long) with 61 curves, 345 vertical meters and 3 jumps. I wanted to slide down at the end of the day despite Marty's resistance. I never saw and tried such a toboggan, so today it was that day to do it :-)

From here we went right, of course, to Huggenberg Gasthof.

And looking back from where we came on the forest road ......

Huggenbergalm Hut is directly next to the top station of the Biberg summer tobbogan run.
Family Strickner, open until the end of October. Days off in October: Monday and Tuesday.
tel.: 0043/6582/73497 / www.huggenberg.at

From the generous sun terrace, where we stopped to drink something, there is an overwhelming view over the Saalfelden and the mountains chain called "Rocky Sea" and the Mountain Mass Hochkönig.

a typical Austrian Family in the specific wonderful clothes

Austrians are very particular about details, art and recycling. Too much old iron around? The perfect chance to do some art ..... The Iron Cow is a complicated sculpture from old rosted iron ..... My mother used to say, as I was a little girl: "Give them shit and they will do the finest face cream from it - said my grandmother to me always!" :-)

Every place is private space and there is no place for lack of ideas ..... a reason why the diversity of this country seems to be endless ......

The map of the mountain with the summer tobbogan.

And after sitting for a while, me and Marty went further to the next station, the Berggasthof Biberg. 50 minutes seemed to be for him a challenge, but after already 30 minutes we reached the house and for me it was much to soon :-) I was in the mood to run and I couldn't .... pretty a challenge not to travel alone .....

From the Huggenberg the forest road continues uphill over the mountain of Biberg.

So, as mentioned above, in 30 minutes we got a new chance to drink or eat something, but we just looked around and I took a lot of pictures of the place, admiring the wooden sculptures and the entire old and ancient patrimonium of the household ....

Wonderful sculpture and very interesting integrated in the house architecture.

As everywhere in this part of Austria, the wood is carved and express something as it would speak to you ..... if you want to accept it.

no idea what kind of machinery this is ....

old handmade furniture - beautifuly preserved

"No drinking water" inscription should prevent you to even try it, but I enjoyed drinking from it ..... they for sure want to sell the water on the terrace, otherwise I see no reason why water coming from the ground should not be good enough to be drunk. I had no problem with it :-) and I know the trick with "no drinking water" in such places.

The picture above: An amazing charmy old, very old small house .... a dream house in a dream place ..... not easy reachable by car, anyway!

I would paint the shoe in stron beautifully red with a nice Edelwess-Flower on it

"God bless your coming and God bless your leaving after you paid for your consumation" - a pretty strange inscription .... almost a "welcome" or ..... ?

wooden carvings everywhere, somebody is talented hier

So, we left the idylic place and went further. Marty would have went back, but I said, I would like some steps further, to see what it comes :-)

And it came a wonderful "Theme Park" - Roundway. This sort of strong marketing and educational tools is all over Austria. In some places, even in English. Just think about the real longterm impact of such of Theme Parks, man!

You go along and have the chance to read information about the place. What creatures are living here, what resources can be found, how the place was formed or built, why we should protect the area and follow the path in order to let the few animals still survived us to have their own life, undisturbed, what role plays the fores for us etc. etc. ....

I said: "Let's go right and come back from the other side. It should take about 45 minutes and we still have plenty of time." Not very excited about my idea or about my energy, Marty agreeded .... to follow me .... again on an unknown path .... pretty uncomfortable for him.

Red Deer Trace

Along the way are these marks, so that you don't lose the path through the wide forest. In the same time, you get to know different traces of the local animals .... this below is from a stone marten.

Below 3 larch trees and in front of them a big plate with information and questions, what do you know about larch trees or so. If you want to get the right answers, you can go around and inbetween the body trees and read the answers on the small plates fixes on the edge. I love the system!

Feeling child again, act childish again .....

Every 50 or 100 meters it comes a new Information Point with plenty of pictures and texts. Everything seems to be very good managed and taken care of.

Deer traces

Doesn't look pretty amazing?

A places for foxes .......

Man's handmade work, a curved tunnel where the foxes can find protection especially when they have little babies and need their own place and peace ..... the tunnel was empty now and cleaned ....

Western Capercaillie traces ..... - a wonder they still survived us (!!!)

Squirell traces

In the middle of the forest, on a higher plateau, you suddenly are in front of a huge high viewing platform ... so we walk up the stairs to the 3 level and look around us ....

It started to rain with sunshine as we were at the mid of our roundtrip while wondering an amazing panorama view over the Zeller Lake, Großglockner and Kitzsteinhorn. As it thundered I knew, it is time to rise our tempo back downhill! I had rain protection in my small backpack, but Marty refused to take anything with him .....

An absolutely amazing place with a special flair: The Rock Labyrinth, an ancient concept - I remembered about Sarmizegetusa Regia in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains

I remembered about Sarmizegetusa Regia in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains - the picture below - and about a very similar place auf Buchenberg in Waidhofen, Low Austria.
And a drawing I made back in March this year ......

Hidden small lake ......

snow rabbit traces

Badgers traces

The rain began to be very loud and strong and I started to run downhill despite the total unappropiate shoes (summer asphalt running shoes, I had no idea I will walk on a mountain today!) I knew we are just about 500 m away from the starting point of our round thematic trip and we get rain protection there.

But the rain wasn't just a short summer one and we were blocked there because Marty carried anything at all to protect him. I told him, next time I do not take him on the mountain anymore without rain protection and water in the backpack. It cannot be, that he goes hiking keeping the car keys in the hand (!!!) and telling me stories about how brave he is in the mountains ..... We were already wet, so waiting longer was not such a good idea and he agreed we have to move on fast back to the car, about 20-30 minutes downhill.

It took longer, as he was afraid to run, he also had no good shoes, althought he knew very well what kind of road we are going to walk today .... the summer tobbogan was closed, of course, so I had no other choice than to run the way back and to wait for him every 3 minutes .....

Wonderful scenery ..... and the Sound of Silence .......

Then he complained, it is cold because he is wet ..... "You have to start running and you will warm up! Come, follow me!" and he said: "Do you think so?!" - "I know so, the science already proof that movement brings warmth into your body. Run, follow me!" - and he finally did it for the last 300 m of our adventure :-)