Rätikon – Second helping without cream

14. + 15. August 2025

 

 

The morning at Lake Lünersee was quite lovely. I had my last muesli with coffee, a young man was wiping the tables, and it was fairly quiet. Then off I went for a short walk to the dam wall.

 

 

 

 

 

Then the sun crawled over the mountain and bathed everything in a beautiful light.

 

 

 

 

Quite nice without the crowds! But then the first gondola arrived and spat out its first load. And we hopped in.

 

 

The plan: Take the car to a gondola near Schruns, go halfway up, and then follow a lakeside trail to a hut for lunch. It was supposed to be very easy. However, it turned out to be 500 meters of elevation gain—and I grumbled when I realized that. The memory of the previous day’s exhaustion, combined with the mindset that the tour was basically over, made it feel like too much. Karla wasn’t happy about that.

 

First, I went back to the car to repack with more water and so on. Just before the mid-station, I noticed I was missing my sunglasses. No way I could go without them. Probably left them in the restroom—so I stayed in the gondola and went back down. Someone had found them and given them to the cashier. Back up again.

 

And now? Overcome my exhaustion fears? Karla had had enough and decided: straight to the top, and we’d just look around there.

 

 

The tricky part was that our physical needs and difficulties were almost completely opposite at that moment. She, with her knee, preferred not to go downhill, while I, with my heat-induced dizziness, didn’t really want to go uphill—and there wasn’t much else to do here… So we grumbled at each other a bit. But then we found a lovely spot to sit and enjoy the view, and later a hut with a tasty lunch.

 

 

 

 

And then we took the gondola back down, went to a natural outdoor pool, and later to the holiday apartment in Gaschurn. In the evening there was a big thunderstorm with heavy rain—it was the “night of the long gondolas”, and we watched them still running while we were glad to be sitting in the dry! We had thought we’d learned our lesson about checking elevation gain beforehand and deciding accordingly—but nope.

 

The next day we picked a hike described as family-friendly and, judging by the map, with hardly any elevation gain. In reality, it was over 400 meters—but at least pleasantly in the shade. Only Karla’s knee really complained on the way down.

 

 

Then at some point it got very windy, and we decided to turn back—and by late afternoon the rain had returned. What incredible weather luck we’d had during the actual tour!

 

We also saw a surprising number of Orthodox Jews—they seemed a bit unusual in this setting. Here’s an article (sorry, german language only) with some background: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/oesterreich-ueber-die-grenze-1.4091864. There’s also a Jewish Museum in Hohenems, and we suspect they were there for a special memorial or commemorative gathering. But I couldn’t find anything concrete in a quick search.

 

Karla’s husband arrived, we enjoyed a lovely evening together, and the next morning I headed home—rain all the way until Innsbruck.

 

Conclusion? Traveling with Karla for a few days is always good, and we both think we’ll keep it up. She generally enjoys my dawdling pace in the mountains, we walk at a similar rhythm, and overall it works out well. Plus, it’s of course great to have a little more time for conversation. As reviews so often say: gladly again!

 

That said, I didn’t really warm up to the region—too crowded, and far too many cable cars. I think cable cars are wonderful for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to experience the mountains from above. But there’s a personal balance—something I’ve reflected on before—of how much of what one enjoys, and the tipping point where it becomes too much. For me, this time it tipped. A bit of a pity, really, because the landscape itself is beautiful.

 

This summer has been quite exciting in terms of Alpine experiences. I’m curious how I’ll find Slovenia. The huts there are certainly full as well. July/August is definitely not the ideal time, but of course you can’t always choose freely. And even in the off-season, things like cable cars are still around. Personally, I’d prefer larger and more remote areas.

 

I also found the size and modernity of the Austrian huts rather striking. They’re often more comfortable, yes—but somehow I do still prefer those older, more traditional huts.