Speikkogel

In general, when you think of mountains you think of many rocks and mainly a stony top or even better covered in snow, but Speikkogel looks more like a hill, but a hill at 1988 m. The view from the top is nice, many valleys and some other mountains.

But to start with the beginning, we started the hike quite late and I was worried the entire time that it will rain, and it did by the end of the hike. The first part of the hike was mainly through forest, always having on one side or the other a stream of water.

On our hike we saw nice mushrooms, but also a baby deer, not more than a week old, it was really cute, and the mother was a bit scared of us, but all was well, the two didn’t get separated.

After the first part of the hike, you should reach a mountain hut and a church, I kept wondering why there is a church at 1500 m altitude when the only house around there is the mountain hut, unfortunately I didn’t ask the people at the hut.

After the hut, begins a very steep part, where we had the luck to encounter cows, in general I really like cows, but I am a bit afraid that some might attack you, but for us all was fine, the cows ignored us, and we ignored them. As you hike the last 400 m in altitude, you see one hill and you think when I reach that I will see the cross, well…nope, you get to one point where you think that’s it just to see another hill, and then another and then finally the cross.

It was my first time ever in a hike to take my 50 mm lens instead of my normal 18-75 mm lens, so taking photos of the mountain and the group photo was tricky but I managed.

On the way back, we stopped for some food at the hut and to have a drink, I had spinach soup, it looked so good that I had to take a photo.

Afterwards, I photographed some flowers…

And we saw two alpine ibex...

and a snake, but it could also be the lizard that looks like a snake, I’m not an expert so I cannot really say.

And of course, I’ve met a cat exactly when we were back in Graz, she didn’t want to play with me, maybe next time I see her I will try to be more convincing.