Cycling the Grossglockner: Austria's Highest Mountain

I know I have so much catching up to do on our adventures in this blog, but I just couldn't wait to get this one down. It's too good.



View of the Grossglockner from Fuschl Tor



Returning home from Slovenia last year in June we drove through Austria and took the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse on the road home. The Grossglockner is Austria's highest mountain and it's second most popular tourist destination. It's Austria's version of the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park and its incredibly spectacular. When we reached the Fuschl Tor near the top, a group of older cyclists (some over 70) had just pulled in, huffing and puffing. I was deeply impressed by their achievement and awed by the mountain.

Fuschl Tor taken during our Slovenia trip

So, when my friend Thomas told me that he has ridden the Grossglockner a bunch of times on his way to Croatia (that's another story) and that he would take me up whenever I wanted, I couldn't resist the challenge and put it on my list of things to do before we left.

With work a bit slow and the weather fabulous this week, we arranged on Sunday that we would ride Grossglockner with his brother-in-law Uncle Thomas (uncle used to distinguish between the two Thomases)and friend Max from Monday night to Tuesday. Yes, it was to be another evening escapade in the mountains for me, but that's fine, I understand now Thomas's strategy to the night approach - no heat, no people, no traffic. The weather conditions on the mountain couldn't be more optimal and despite not feeling my fittest, we decided to go for it. We would drive up to Ferleiten, the park entrance, arrive around ten pm and then take the two to three hours needed to get to the Fuschl Tor at 2428 meters, sleep at the top (in some mountain hut), then get up about 5am and ride to the Hochtor tunnel at 2504 meters and then ride back down the mountain the way we came. In other words, about 33 kilometers and 1283 meters of climbing, with another 150 or so to get to Hochtor, one way.

So, we arrive and off we go up the mountain. The air wass warm, there's a half moon rising over the mountain and nary a cloud in the sky.

Moon rising as we are starting out

The lads all have plastic baskets strapped on their bike racks with sleeping bags, water, jacket, food, change of clothes. Of course, being the American, I have a backpack strapped to my back. No worries, not too heavy, but mental note to self, do some practice rides with a backpack before heading up big mountains (Marie, please add to your rule book). The lads forge ahead, it doesn't take long before I'm on my own heading up the mountain. I keep my light off unless I hear a car, the moon lit up the road nicely. Every so often, Thomas would call down or flash his light from a few turns above and he usually waited if I got too far behind. Even though I wasn't alone, I was riding alone and in the dark on the mountain, that did strange things to my head. I kept singing lyrics from the Who film Tommy to myself: "No one knows what it's like to be a sad man..., etc." Not sure why, it seemed to keep my mind off other things, like the several cars that kept driving up and down the curves, I thought we were being stalked like prey, but Thomas told me the next time I caught up with him that it was drivers doing brake tests. Since the license plates were Ingolstadt, home of Audi, I assume Audi sends its engineers and cars to the Grossglockner to do drive tests. Interesting.

The moon over the mountains was amazing and I managed the odd photo here and there, most very fuzzy.



After three hours, a few stops here and there, Thomas, who had waited for me, and I make it to Fuschl Tor where the other two were waiting for us.

Uncle Thomas (yellow), Thomas and Max grilling

We decided to descend down to our overnight spot to some hut they knew of. Once we arrived, after descending a few hundred meters, Uncle Thomas wasted no time in setting up the grill on the porch and putting brats on. Yes, my Austrian cycle buddies travel in style, beer and brats, minute steaks, pork steaks, it was a feast at the top of the mountain at 1am in the morning, priceless. It was cold but not freezing, the stars were plentiful and no clouds, unusual I'm told for the Grossglockner.

Since we were planning on being up at dawn, I headed into the hut, crawled into my sleeping bag and hunkered down to try and sleep. The others followed a while later, settled down and all was quiet. Until a cell phone rang at 4am in the morning. It was Uncle Thomas's cell, who I should mention here works as a real estate agent and has a pregnant wife at home due in the next three weeks (do you see where I'm going with this?). So either someone wanted to buy a house or it was baby time. Well, it wasn't the former. "Was, es ist soweit? Das Baby kommt?" he yells into the phone. Oh, god, we all moan, it can't be, now? of all the times to go into labor. Yes, Uncle Thomas has to get home, the baby is coming. Her water has broken and we gotta get down off the mountain. I immediately feel like I'm in the middle of a TV sitcom: The baby is coming, what do we do? Get hot water. Oh wait, we are on a mountain and it's 4am, get the ponies and start riding!
Uncle Thomas is packed and ready to go in about 5 minutes. The other Thomas waits for me as I get my stuff together and we head up back up the to Fuschl Tor and then descend. I tried to hang back a wee bit to get a few pictures, but Thomas said "No, no time for pictures, the baby is coming." Damn, I'm thinking, gorgeous colors, sun rising over the mountains and I have no time to take a dang photo. When am I going to ever be here again? Well, about half-way down the mountain, Thomas relents and I get a few fuzzy photos.

Like this one



Here's the only one of me



Getting light as we reach the parking lot

We had planned to take time to descend so I could take lots of photos. Had my MBBC jersey on and wanted to get some good shots with it on, but no, the baby was coming and Daddy had to get home. I guess I'll just have to ride the Glockner again. Hmm, maybe next week.

So, I may have failed to get good photos, but I sure got a good story. And there is a happy ending: We made it from the top of the mountain to Burghausen in 3 hours (cycling and driving) and Uncle Thomas made it to the hospital to welcome baby Moritz into the world. I'm sure that child will hear the story of where his daddy was on the night of his birth many times over.

p.s. Marie: Another addition to the rule book: Never go cycling on overnight trips with guys who have very pregnant wives back home.