Having aborted on this walk a few days ago due to the van breaking down, with an excellent forecast this was the obvious choice for the day while we were staying in Mühlbach, with the added advantage that the lifts were free.
We started the walk with a traverse around the top of the Altfasstal to the Seefeld See. This was really beautiful with stunning views down the gorgeous valley, I had been carrying my glider with me for a flight down at the end of the day, but I had been quietly wondering if I would also be able to fly down from Seefeld See. Any doubts I had about this were soon quashed as we saw a glider doing exactly that while we were still heading to the lake.
As we emerged above the lake we had a lovely view down on the lake, before we descended to walk around it. Around the lake we were in the sun and outside of the breeze so it was very warm and inviting for a quick swim, needless to say that the water was pretty cold!
After drying off and walking to the head of the lake, we were greeted by excellent conditions for the take off, so after quickly setting up I was soon in the air for the short but beautiful flight down. All too soon I was down in the valley having landed right by a hut, where I enjoyed a nice cold drink after having packed up my paraglider.
Next we had a reasonable amount of ascent up to the Gitschberg, initially this was just a bit of a grind up through the forest and up in the hot sun when we were in the valley, but as we climbed higher the views started to open up. This really improved when we arrived at the Falzarer Joch as we could then see north towards the main alpine ridge.
The final ridge up to the Gitschberg was really stunning, with outstanding views in every direction and all too soon, although not for our legs, we were at the summit with a wonderful 360 degree panorama. The wind was challenging on the summit for take off, with wind shear just above the summit, so after a few failed launches I walked down a little bit and successfully forwarded launched in nil wind to enjoy the long glide back down to the valley.
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