Klaus Overnight

We arrived later in the afternoon at the Klaus train station. Continuing from there, we hiked for around 2.5 hours until the rain and lack of daylight forced us to set up camp before we made it to our planned campsite. The rain subsided and allowed us to make dinner overlooking a wide bend in the river. After a delicious meal we settled in for the night amidst the sound of falling rain on our tents.

The following morning, we made breakfast after taking down our tents rather quickly (unfortunately wild camping is frowned upon in Austria - however we had little choice with the weather the night before). Instead of choosing to complete the loop back to Klaus we instead headed for Windischgarsten, a town we thought would only be a few hours down the valley. The alpine club in this region must be underfunded, because the trail markings were few and far between. In addition to this, the vast majority of the trail is on paved roads - a poor choice when wearing stiff backpacking boots.

After hours of drudging along, an extremely kind elderly couple offered us a ride to the train station. My friend Dave's superior German skills helped us through their thick regional accents and we made it to the station 20 minutes later. Had we continued walking my feet would have quit.