Schneeberg (2076 m) is the highest mountain in Lower Austria and together with Rax (2007 m) considered the Viennese Hausberge (local mountains). Schneeberg is the mountain that seems to always rule the view when driving south from Vienna. If the weather is clear, Schneeberg is visible even from Vienna.
We are not really mountain climbers, but what I was interested in the most were the 450 meter long sport routes that are on the west side of the mountain. However, Schneeberg is quite big and it’s not really obvious where we should go. And we didn’t even know for sure where we would like to go. Maybe to the top? Or at least above the clouds.
Most of the pictures of Schneeberg were taken from Puchberg am Schneeberg so we decided to go there at first. There actually is a train(!) from Puchberg to (almost) top of Schneeberg and for us, it sounded like a nice way to cheat our way to the summit.
However, 70 € for two was a bit too salty price. So, instead of train-mountaineering we bought a good map, and drove as high as we could with the car.
Anu spotted a pizzeria at Hintern Federn, so here we go again... It was already 1:30 PM so I was a bit skeptical about our mountain climbing plans. However, the pizzeria was very close to a ski resort and the lift was running. We didn’t know where it would take us, but at least we would get 500 meters higher.
Hydrating with red wine makes mountain climbing a bit more fun.
Holy moly, snow
Hiking makes you thirsty. Nice crags on the background. Probably not worth the hike though.
No idea what the scale is, but these look nice.
Smoky crags
Ok, this is more fun than boulder hunting.
Taking photos of snow made me feel like a Japanese tourist.
Afternoon pizza & beer = no summit. Our high point was probably somewhere at 1500 - 1700 meters. We also missed those 450-meter sport routes, which happen to be located on the other side of the mountain. Still, we weren't too disappointed.
After all, we got this
This is the top of the snowy crags we saw before
Clouds
65 km of driving from Mödling, helt okej!
Sun goes down, it's time to move
Back in the foggy forest
ISO 12800 gives a nice Blair Witch effect
It was pretty foggy, but not a problem as long as there was a bit of sunlight
30 minutes later it was a bit different... with a headlamp you could see only about 1 or 2 meters. We found a bar on the top of the ski resort (closed, too bad), but the lift 50 meters away was impossible to find. Not that it would have been running any more, but there was a road close by and that might be the easiest way down.
After wandering around for a while we ended up at a cabin. There were some lift workers who were just about to drive down. They offered to take us down so unfortunately we skipped the adventurous part of the day. A few minutes later we were already at our car and driving back to Mödling. A nice way to spend a rainy day, and a not too bad alternative for crag hunting!
