What a difference a day makes! The sky is shiny blue this morning and my mood already much better. After our fast breakfast a long day awaits us along the “7-TUXer” trail. We will climb six of the seven summits (all around 2500-2700m altitude) today and don’t even know where to sleep tonight (the regular hut told us that even their “emergency” capacity is full). But first we have to hike up a rather easy trail from the Lizumer Hut at 2019m to the Naviser Jöchle 2479m. 

From there the trail starts to be much more difficult up to the first summit at 2796m, the Grafmartspitze. In between the summits we have to hike or even climb down and up, often on big boulders and stones. The view is great and we love the diversity and difficulty of the trail today. It’s very tiring for our legs which are now used to hiking but not to so much climbing! It’s a Saturday, great weather and Monday is a bank holiday in Austria – meaning plenty of other hikers are on the trail and we have some nice short chats with some people. In the meantime we also managed to make a reservation at a small private hut about 90minutes further down the original hut. 

We were warned that the trail will take us a long time because of the difficulty of the trail and plenty of ups and downs but just when our legs start to become very heavy we arrive at the Glungezer hut. We know that from here it’s an easy 90minutes down and it’s only 3.30pm. The difficult trail only took us 8h despite all warnings. We were also asked by a few people how difficult it will become and how long it takes, it seems some people were scared by others warning them about three Dutch guys who needed 18h to hike it. We are not the fastest nor the experienced hikers but with just a few short breaks and our stamina built over the last weeks we made it. It also shows me again how much the mental state can influence what your body can do (or wants to do). I was feeling so weak yesterday but I also didn’t want to be in the cold snow hiking. Today we had such a great weather and a challenge and my body was fully up for this hike. When we arrived at the hut we were exhausted but in a very positive way. And in this small private hut there are just two other guests and we have our own room with a shared bathroom (where I cannot even stand up as it’s under the roof but who cares, it’s clean and warm!). Time to relax in the sunbeds and enjoy the view.