Trail Running: Schneckenreits - Kaprun, Austria

 find your personal trainer and local guide in the area of Zell am See-Kaprun

The first part of the today's run - follow me through the Sigmunds-Thun Gorge in Kaprun 
I left the gorge and I continued my solo adventure taking the path to the left, through the rain. Trail running. Emotional run. Meditative run. Run for Life, if you want. 

"Almvirtschaft Schneckenreith" is an old farmer household which I discovered back mid of April, as I firstly run this trail and I found the fascination of the area!

The picture above: Mid of April.

The picture below: Begining of June.

On the left side of the picture you can see a zig-zag path. That is the Bürgkogel.

The Bürgkogel - a hillside at the end of the valley of Kaprun - is protected by the Sigmund-Thun-Gorge. It is that hill crossed by the zig-zag path. I climbed the hill in April from the other side, as the nature just started to get green, but it was still a pretty desolated landscape. Now I see the new perspective over the hill ..... I could have descend directly to the lake. The path along the lake on the other side of the lake is the path I run today on my way back.

Chapter: "Moments of Life":

I am for the 4th time on this probably nameless mountain ..... this is how it looks from the other side of it:

It seems not so high and not so steep indeed, but it is steep. I use to run-walk until the edge of the forest, where it seems to be a choice: a small path leading to the right and one to the left, but no other indications. 

I like wide spaces, open fields - so entering the forest in this area seems pointless for me ..... this is why this here is the last point where I turn back and descent on the same trail.

I am pretty sure, the hill belongs to the farmer here, because he keeps his cows on it.

The line downhill is the road between Kitzsteinhorn and Kaprun - only 7 km long.

Before I reached the highest point of my run today it started to rain. Still sticky air, warm water falling from the sky, so I didn't felt the urge to take my rain jacket I was carrying on the backpack. I missed my sun cap .... I never go running without head protection. When is it hot, it helps me to save energy, the head, the eyes, the face need calm and the shadow of the cap offers that calm.  When it's raining, it protect me also.

 I spend some time on the hill as I didn't want to return ....

but you always go back ..... always .....

This is an electricity gate, the cows know they cannot go further. It is a manner of keep control and avoid accidents, I suppose. The cows are free everywhere, but everything is managed and controled. Anyway, I am glad to see them living free and not kept closed all day and all seasons, as I saw in Low Austria :-( terrible animal cruelty!!!

passing through for humans .... if you are overweight, you have no chance to pass through

I decided to run a bit longer through the rain, so I followed the road descending to the right and crossing the river and then running back to the gorge, but on the opposite side of the lake.

looking back to the hill I just descended

Still raining, still beautiful, still energetic and medidative in the same time ... the forest road on the other side of the lake and along the road leads through a different landscape which I enjoy every time, again and again .....

An apparently simply, but efficient Fitness Parcours is included in this segment and I stayed some longer moments in the area ..... 

I actually never do the entire parcours, I do not have enough patience for it, but I find the idea simple excellent. You get a good opportunity to real strech after a good long run and now, as I write these words, I get appettite to go out and run and stretch again .....

As my life is still on slow-motion speed ..... I ask myself sometimes, when and if I will get back my "before" shape ....

or how it will be to meet me then again ....

 Many are missleaded about seeing me "running all the time" .... as in fact I just stagnate from several points of view, but growing from inside.

I find quite interesting to watch yourself going in a direction where you just came from - take the above picture as a huge symbolistic image and ask yourself: Where am I going to? Back or forward? You get the chance to see, once again, how relative everything is. In your life and around you. For you and for everybody else. Are you going back or forward is just a matter of the stand point, right?

I reached the gorge again .... and the tranquility inside the water force .... still raining ....

Still raining and me watching over an incredible beautiful water color ending into the Kitzsteinhorn Glacier ....

On my right the handmade waterfall wall ....

I finished the trail run for today - 10 km - still having about 1300 km to run (or walk) back to my car.  I looked once again to the water under my feet .... I was there, deep inside of the gorge just about one hour before ....

I run along the gorge, not through the gorge, on the opposite side as I always did - a new trail segment through the forest.

 Lush vegetation all over the place, marvellous green nuances and a lot of life inside the wet forest!

I started trail running back in 2012. Before trail running came into my life I used to say that "running on a mountain is like a blasfemy, because you don't have the time to enjoy the mountain and everything around you. Why would you want to run on a mountain actually?!"

But I tell you something, now, after 6 years of trail runnig, race or non-race runs:

You enter new dimensions, you meet new emotions, new perspective ..... you enter something you cannot imagine it exists and this brings you to different levels and impressions!

After 2 hours and 12 km I was finally tired :-), but happy!!!!!