Through a river valley

After leaving the gorge I went alongside the River, deeper into the valley.

After leaving the Kaiserklamm the valley immediately opened up and looked like seen in a movie or described in a book: Wild, untouched river valley. Total contrast to the gorge before. Two possible paths opened up: One heading upside the mountain, the other following the riverbank of the Brandenberger Ache. Needless to say, I took the second one. Without any regret at all.

Walking along a wile river in the middle of nowhere can be a funny thing to do.

It truly was the right decision. The path curved with the river, from time to time it was possible to went down to the riverbank and do the usual thing: Taking a picture, like the one above. The way itself was in pretty good shape, a not really broad gravel path with some small river crossings (just a board to walk over). A nice walk with the sound of flowing water as constant background noise. Had something of a relaxing Sunday afternoon stroll.

Ruins beside the way, looks like there once was a bench...

But there were also some hints of civilization (beside the path itself) nearby. Something that looked like a bench that had it's best years long long ago came across my way. Had too take a picture.

The next gorge?

Than the path neared it's end, after I think about an hour. Far too early for my taste. But in front of me, the valley got narrower once more: A second gorge? Hopefully. But not according to any of the maps I studied for preparation.

That's how a bridge should look like.

So just one thing to do, walking over the bridge above and a few meters after the small path led into a broad gravel road. There I turned right, crossed the Brandenberger Ache on a concrete bridge and turned to the left, straight into the narrow valley on the picture below. And the road looked like that for a long time, a little bit too long for my taste, but well the goal was waiting somewhere deeper in the valley.

It is getting narrower once more.

But then, suddenly, with no warning or something like that it stood in front of me: A gigantic block of concrete. As far away from any village you can get in that region. Built to last for a long time, originally designed to store water for one single purpose: No, not to produce electricity. Just to flush it out through the valley as fast as possible, on command, to take all the lumber lying in it's way with it. Drift it all trough the Kaiserklamm and the Tiefenbachklamm out into the Inn Valley. Gigantic amounts of wood. It was done that way for hundreds of years. Until 1966. Roads where build and transporting on trucks got far too cheap. The building lost it's original purpose, but still stands there as an impressing tourist attraction. A true remnant of an passed by era.

The goal of that part of the hike, the Erzherzog Leopold Klause

And I, I sat on a stone in front of it. Took a closer look during eating my lunch. But I wasn't at my goal, not now, still around fifteen ore more kilometers to go.

And in the end, as always: If you are interested in more stories like that take a closer look at my Blog, if you want be informed on upcoming stories you can follow there -Facebook- and there -Twitter-. And as always, feel free to like and share, if the story is it worth to you. Or you do it all the old fashioned way: Talk to some friends about it over a cup of coffee.