Day 08: Hike up to the Rosskofel

In the morning the view is pretty nil everywhere and the humidity is very high due to the fog. So we have a leisurely breakfast and then read in our books for a while.

When weather gets a better in Sonnleitn around 11 a.m., we head to the intermediate station of the Millennium Express on the Tresdorfer Alm and take a gondola up to the Madridschen Sattel. On the way up, the view from the gondola is sometimes rather poor. So we first drink a cappuccino and then start on the first stretch towards the Rudnig saddle. On the way we want to decide whether we want to descend halfway towards the Rudnig Alm when the weather doesn't get better. But the clouds are breaking up and we decide to climb the Rosskofel, our original plan for today.

Behind the artificial lake (use for making additional snow in winter times), the path leads up over a long scree field with partly large rocks – exciting, because we have never walked such a stretch. Well marked, we easily find the way, it's fun. We leave the angle tower and via ferrata on the left and continue to hike uphill, until the summit it takes a little longer. And you can't even make out the summit in the rapidly changing views. Up there we hit the friendship bell of course, which was set up in 1998 on the occasion of 50 years of peace between Italy and Austria. Because of the very fast changing weather we sometimes have sight and sometimes not, but the advantage is that there is no one except us on the summit at an altitude of 2240 m. We have only met 6 people on the way so far. The way back to the Rudnig-Sattel leads us steeply through scree and rock and we often need our hands for climbing. We are already used the way to the Rudnik-Sattel and to the Alm and to Sonnleitn. Since we are quite late, everything is very peaceful.

We immediately have dinner in the restaurant as we arrive  – after a shower it would be difficult to walk to the restaurant. We are exhausted but it was a great day.