It took me about 1 hour to get to the trailhead in 'Erlaufklause'. We started along a logging road and I had decided to hike in the entire logging road until it reaches the mountain hut 'SH Vorderoetscher'. What I didn't expect was, that the mountain hut was closed on that day. But that didn't stop me from doing that hike anyway. The hike is pretty easy and it takes you about 2 1/2 hours to reach 'SH Vorderoetscher'. You get some great views of 'Oetscher' and you get to experience the fall colors of the forest.
When we got to the mountain hut, we took a short rest. Daisy got something to drink and to chill out in the shade for about 1/2 hour. It was a nice surprise to find some cans of beer cooled in a kind of a animal trough. I took advantage of the offer and paid gladly the 2€ for the beer. Up till here we had only met 4 other hikers. I really didn't expect many, since this was a weekday and fairly late into the hiking season.
After the relaxing for about 1/2 hour we started with the descend into the 'Upper Oetschergraeben'. You have to hike down for about 1/2 hour through one of the side-canyons. Since there were that few hikers I decided to let Daisy hike off leash. She really enjoyed that quite a lot and it wasn't a problem since I know that Daisy doesn't go running of and she doesn't chase wildlife either. About halfway down the side-canyon we met 2 more hikers, but Daisy didn't pay any attention to them..she was busy drinking out of s creek. We continued down the side-canyon and pretty soon reached to main-canyon.
The main canyon is a quite narrow trail, sometimes high above the river, but absolutely beautiful to hike. I didn't expect Daisy to have any issues, but I did watch her in the beginning, just in case she should be a little unsure about the trail. For her that was no big deal, she acted as if she had done that her entire life. The further downriver you get, the broader the trail gets. We passed 'Mira Fall' that almost had no water at all and about 1/2 later we reached a snack place called 'Oetscherhias'. By the time we got there the snack place had already closed for the day. So we just stopped to have something to drink, before starting to hike out of the canyon. By about 6 pm we were back at the car.
It was s great and beautiful fall hike and it took us about 5 1/2 hours to complete the entire hike. Daisy has been hiking exceptionally well the past few weeks and she definitely had a blast checking out all the different smells and scents. And of course she got to do here new favorite thing: walking through creeks and drinking out of them. That's something she picked up when she got to Austria!
You can check out more pix of that hike in the photo-album 'Upper Ötschergräben' on my FaceBook Page!!
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