Towards the end of our summer roadtrip we went to Liechtenstein to explore this European micronation and quickly realized what this country is all about: Hiking the amazing Alps!
Liechtenstein is a tiny country squeezed in between Switzerland and Austria. As we pass the border from Switzerland nothing really feels different. There are no border controls, the roads look the same and the language stays more or less unchanged as well. However, as we venture beyond the border towards the mountains we start to see a difference. The roads go up and it’s getting steeper and steeper. Gear by gear we have to shift down and reduce the speed to an almost stand-still while the engine, hardly having the power of more than a few ponies, tries to pull us towards the mountain top.
After about 20 minutes we arrive at the destination, a guest house in the middle of the Liechtensteinian mountain side. Because it is summer we can drive all the way, but in winter the road is closed due to snow. Exiting the car it becomes clear why people go through all the effort of getting here: The view is as if taken straight out of a travel magazine, the air is fresh and the noise from an otherwise overpopulated world does not reach this far up the mountain. It is completely silent – well, apart from the occasional goat that blocks the narrow road.
Despite being a tiny country Liechtenstein has something to offer for anyone wanting to go for a hike. It is possible to drive quite far up the mountain side, making the stunning scenery accessible even for people in wheelchairs. At the other end of the scale there is a 400 kilometre network of hiking trails, keeping even the most seasoned hikers busy for a while.
We aim for something in between and find a suitable route to Alpspitz, a mountain at 1943 meters, taking a few hours to complete round trip. The car is being parked at Gaflei, a mere 700 meters from the top. The only challenge is that although it is only 700 meters away when you look at a map it is also 500 meters away – vertically. The trail therefore ends up at around 6 km return trip, with a lot of zig-sagging.
The first part of the trails goes along gravel road through cow pastures. It is easy to navigate and goes on for a while. Around half way the gravel turns into a narrower path that quickly turns into a variety of landscape with no clear markings. After a bit of discussion we agree that it’s easiest to find a general direction and make our own trail. With the exception of a few electrical fences and some crowded bushes this appears to be a good decision. After 2 km we reach the top of the mountain ridge and get the opportunity to see both Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria all at once! On the other side of the mountain ridge it is almost completely vertical, but we still got a bit to go along the ridge to the tallest point, Alpspitz itself. Luckily that is just a few hundred meters away and the path is relatively flat. Very relatively.
Finally we reach the summit, but also get to experience the rapid weather changes of the Alps a bit more up close and sooner than we would have preferred. The view that only minutes ago was a stunning overview of almost an entire country has turned into a white wall only meters in front of us. This is a bit scary, as we know that only a few meters beyond the white wall the mountain side plummets almost straight down for several hundred meters. The temperature at the top is also very different from the valley below, especially with the wind and the fact that we are inside a humid cloud.
In 1944 a large cross was raised here, looking rather interesting. Even with all the skies we are at least able to see that! We consider staying a bit on the summit in case the sky clears up, but the cold temperature and a setting sun convinces us to start descending again. Half way down we turn around and look back up – now the sky is of course as clear as it gets…
Despite the rapidly changing weather conditions we have had an incredibly good hike with great experiences. If we had more time we would have hiked to Drei Schwestern as well, Liechtenstein’s tallest mountain. I guess we will have to save that for another time, and we would love to return here in winter to experience the country in a completely different way.
Check out our hyperlapse in Europe last summer, where most of the mountain scenes are shot in the Alps in Liechtenstein:
