Day 13 – Oh Say Can You Antholzer See

Jan 26, 2024

Today’s Adventure

There was absolutely nothing unlucky about our Day 13 expedition to the Staller Sattel, a mountain pass separating Italy and Austria at the northern end of the Antholzertal (Antholz Valley). Everything went exactly to plan and even the weather cooperated, at least until later in the afternoon.

Cindy and I took the 9:20 AM train from San Candido to Olang where we transferred to a bus for the half hour ride up the Antholzertal. The bus let us off at the Südtirol Arena, site of the start and finish for last weekend’s World Cup Biathlon Championship. This impressive facility will be one of the venues for the upcoming 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

Given the Olympic connection we made a quick stop in the gift shop to see what they had in the way of swag. I immediately noticed that the young lady at the ski rental desk was inexplicably wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt. We asked her if she went to OSU and she said no, that she had found the sweatshirt in a thrift store. I was very happy to hear that the original owner had seen the error of their ways and at least tried to discard the evil garment.

There’s a beautiful (albeit currently frozen) alpine lake, the Antholzersee, just up the valley from the Südtirol Arena and that’s where today’s hike began. We followed the Seerundweg (German for ‘path around the lake’) to the far end of the lake where we picked up the Winterwanderweg (‘winter hiking path’) towards the Staller Sattel.

The Winterwanderweg started out innocently enough with a fairly level route through the forest but soon began a steep and continuous climb up the side of the mountain, complete with multiple switchbacks and even a tunnel. We enjoyed the views on the way up, including some all the way back down to the Antholzersee, but even so we were definitely glad to finally reach the Staller Sattel.

When we passed over the saddle we officially entered Austria. There was only minimal signage to mark the border crossing in either direction. There was also no passport required thanks to EU unification!

We hadn’t walked very far past the Staller Sattel when we reached a thoroughly frozen lake called the Obersee. At this point we made a left turn and followed a combined hiking and cross country ski trail along the lakeshore to the Rifugio Obersee, a beautiful stone inn.

We had visited the Rifugio Obersee once before (in February of 2023) so it was rather amusing that we were seated at the exact same table in the main dining room. Cindy ordered a wheat beer to go with her ‘house macaroni’, which had a meat sauce, pesto, and diced mozzarella. I had a helles or pale lager to go with my Wienerschnitzel.

After lunch we geared up and put on our ice cleats for the trip back down the mountain. The trail conditions had been marginal on the way up but never quite worthy of digging out the cleats. That said, the cleats made it so much easier for the return trip with their incredible traction. All told the hike was 9.6 miles with 1,975 feet of vertical that we completed in just over 3-1/2 hours.

This weekend will be interesting – to celebrate the halfway point of our adventure we’ll be heading deep into the Dolomites for an overnight stay at a rather remote mountain inn. We’ll be traveling light with only the bare minimum of clothing and toiletries in our backpacks. There will not be any kind of internet connectivity, so my next post will probably be Sunday evening at the earliest. Until then …

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.