Vacation in the Austrian Alps
We went to the Lienzer Dolomites, south of Lienz. I had found a hut online, the Temlhütte, which promised to be fairly remote. It was on the edge of a traditional mountain pasture called Unholdenalm, an alp where farmers from the valley drive their cows in the summer months. The alp is operated by a group of farmers from the village below who have cows, sheep and goats up there. Traditionally, dairymen and -women would stay with the cows and produce cheese and butter. This tradition stopped on the Unholdenalm when the old couple upholding it became too old and sick to carry on. Today there are cows with their calves but no milking and no dairy production, which would simply not be profitable.
There is a herdsman though looking after the cows, there is a mountain inn, and a handful of huts are rented to tourists like us. So it is not really lonely. The tourists live in the more stable huts that originally were built as accomodation for the dairy people. Many of the huts are more than 200 years old. The alp is accessible over a gravel road which limits the number of people who come up there and probably selects for a certain ruggedness.
As you can see in he following pictures, the landscape and the views are spectacular. I have never been in the Alps before in summer and was blown away.
Here is a google Earth file with the locations on the mountain.
