“Gruss Gott!” exclaimed a cheery hiker as he crunched purposefully past me on a broad mountain path strewn with pebbles. This traditional greeting – frequently used for brief encounters across the Salzburgerland – translates literally as ‘greet God’, but originates from a phrase meaning ‘may God bless you’. As I looked around, sun blazing down on the Alpine peaks, I thought: surely it’s hard not to feel blessed here.
The hiker was lithe and tanned, effortlessly swinging his walking poles and carrying his mid-sized pack; his gait suggested an ability to cover significant distances with ease. As we passed on the slopes of the Schmittenhöhe, a mountain that peaks at 1,965m, I wondered if he might be about to complete the Hohe Tauern Panorama Trail, a ten-day, 152km hike through Hohe Tauern National Park, opened in May 2021, which ends (or begins) at the lakeside town of Zell am See, just down below. I doubted I’d be moving as freely on my tenth consecutive day of trekking here. But the beauty of these mountains is that
