Ein bischen schnee…

“You want to go over the Bielerhohe?” asked the beautiful young lady in the Landeck tourist office. “But it’s snowing up there at the moment.” “Why don’t you cross the Arlsbergpass instead? That’s lower, but oh…wait a minute… it’s snowing up there too.” “Maybe it’d be best if you just took the train.”


The previous day had been one of the most miserable of our entire lives as we crossed back over from Italy into Austria via the Reschenpass. In pouring rain and a biting wind we’d had to spend 2 hours in a cafe near the top to warm up, before descending in fog to a campsite where as the only guests we’d been allowed to sleep in the heated women’s shower block.
We didn’t much fancy the train, and the 500km detour over lower passes to Munich didn’t appeal either, so despite our experiences of the day before we decided to set off for the Bielerhohe anyway – the last pass we needed to cross to be over the Alps.

We wondered if we’d made the right decision as we climbed up through tunnels and snow on the busy road to Ishgl, but when the snow stopped falling, the mountains began to reveal themselves and the traffic disappeared, we had a great afternoon. At Galtur, short of the pass, we stopped to camp. Fortunately the kindly campsite owner, Herr Raggl, took pity on us as we prepared to set up our tent in 10cms of snow, and offered us a discounted room.

In the morning, kitted out in full thermals, fleeces, jackets and 3 pairs of gloves, we were standing on the pass within an hour. The sun came out just about long enough to take a photo of our bikes in front of Piz Buin before we descended 1500m, ending the day 90kms away in Liechtenstein’s (only) campsite.

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