On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
It’s not unusual for us to have so many On the Road submissions in the queue that you don’t get to see your pics published for a month or two. At the moment, though, we have enough submissions for this week and next, but nothing at all after that. So if you have been thinking of sending in some pics but haven’t done it, this would be a great time to send them in and get to see your pics published with a short turnaround.
way2blue
Before our visit to Südsteiermark, we spent time in the Zillertal Alps of Südtirol near the village of Meransen/Maranza. The town has a gondola up to ski runs on Gitschberg [8230 ft] which was still running in October. We would take the gondola up to Nesselhütte [6915 ft] to hike up, down & around a web of trails with stops at Nesselhütte for glühwein / beer. Great autumn colors as the larch foliage had turned yellow. Although a bit taxing at first given my home is closer to 600 ft elevation.
We hiked a combination of trails such as this one, access roads for the ski infrastructure, and wobbly, muddy mountain bike tracks
Looking toward Innichen/San Candido. The air was a little misty so photos aren’t as clear as I’d like of the valleys far below. Drei Zinnen /Tre Crime in the Dolomiti di Sesto mountain range visible on upper right.
Larch trees in their autumn colors.
Valley below Nesselhütte to the west.
Close-up of same valley from the upper hütte.
Rustic hütte perched on side of the valley (closed for the season). We resolved to hike to Ochsenboden [7210 ft] at the top of this high valley the next day along a trail which wraps around west side of Gitschberg. Adjacent to what appeared to be a series of rope-tow supports. And look over the edge…
A gated path at Ochsenboden led down to the valley below. We turned to the left to walk a narrow ridge to Kleiner Gitsch [7420 ft] and continued down along the ridge before turning back toward the valley.
Larch mark the treeline.
JPL
Wow!
JanieM
What beautiful country to walk through! Thanks for showing it to us.
WaterGirl
Beautiful country! That first photo is quite charming.
I should have broken in my hiking boots before we started the trip. Rookie error! :-)
Gin & Tonic
Beautiful photos, thanks.
I’m glad to hear there isn’t much in the OTR queue. Maybe that will push me to work on some long-delayed (by me) submissions.
UncleEbeneezer
Beautiful. I confess that I would be singing “The hills are alive” to the point that my hiking partner would probably want to kill me.
mvr
Nice! So these are the Italian Alps?
It seems to me that mountains in Europe are wild but still show the effects of long human habitation in ways that a good part of the Rockies don’t seem to so much, or maybe the transitions from pastoral to wild in our mountain west are more abrupt. I’m not quite sure how to describe what I mean but there is some visible difference to the look of Europe outside of urban areas compared to the US west.
Wag
What beautiful rolling countryside. I would love to ramble through that area for a week or more.
Wanderer
It’s always easiest to criticize the person/people/President that are doing something.
way2blue
@mvr: Part of the Italian Alps in a loose sense (Europeans tend to distinguish between different ranges) as this part of northern Italy was part of Austria pre-WWI. So the culture is an appealing blend of Austrian & Italian character. There are lots of marked trails in the alps, often with Alm/Hütte as a destination for the views & food/drink. Less wild than our mountains perhaps, but quite accessible. With lots of people of all ages hiking, most with decent & well worn hiking boots…
mvr
@way2blue: Thanks!
Wag
@WaterGirl: I’ll put together a couple of posts later this week
J R in WV
I’ve got some puppy pictures, not on the road, in the house with us hermits… Cute and lovable black dogs.
Bambi parts removed to not repel folks…
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: @Wag:
I await your submissions! Happy to know they are coming.
Individual submissions or sets are all great.
I have been trying to keep sets of 3 from a particular trip or location together, so I post them all the same week. Same with sets of 5. Sets of 4 get spread out in separate weeks.