Zug to Lech trail: Walk with me through the Shimmering Snow

Today, I will take you with me on the magical hike along the river from Zug to Lech, two little villages located in Arlberg, Austria.

Hii, I am Sascha, your tourguide for today! Walk with me from Zug to Lech, through a Narnia like landscape

The villages are famous for all kinda winter activities including sledding, skiing, snowboarding and of course, hiking!

The day started good, since it was sunny. It is not so often that we are so lucky to have our day off from work when the sun is out, so we decided to do the hike we planned already for a while.

The first pictures are made on the mainroad in front of Alphorn, the hotel where we are living, minutes away from the start of the trail. The entire village is covered in snow, including the road, there isn't much traffic out here so you would almost forget that it is actually a road. And the beautiful scenery of the mountains which are surrounding the village, helps to enjoy this part of the track as much as the forest trail.

After a few minutes we arrived at the start of the track, where the pine trees grow, covered in snow. The part which is still unknown, ready to be explored.

Look, that's Zug, our hometown for winter

The once green field full of flowers, covered now under a thick blanket of shimmering snow. The landscape changed completely which makes it almost look like a different world. The nature here in Zug is so magical and exciting!

Let's walk through this magical landscape

Come and follow me

I had never seen the snow shimmer so much as here in Zug before. It looks like a fairytail landscape, where they added some glitters to let the snow look truely magical. And when you have a good look at the snow, You will see that it is completely covered by crystals! That's why it shines that much!

Shimmering Snow

The crystals appear when the water in the air condensate on the cold snow, and freezes again in all kind of shapes, called crystals. It is a beautiful phenomena to once admire in real life! You might wanna write it on your bucketlist!

Snow and frozen water on the branches of the trees

The frozen water out of the air shapes crystals on the snow

After admiring the crystals from closeby, we walked further through the sunny valley. The temperature was warm enough to take of our jacket, something you wouldn't expect in such an icy and snowy environment. The sunrays reflect in the snow in a similar way as they do on the water, to make the sun even stronger (and the sunburn too).
When walking through the forest it is cold and shady. The tall standing pine trees block out the sun, but at the other side, we appreciated the sunshine even more after we left the forest. But let's not forget, the forest is beautiful too with its Christmas trees full of snow.

Just me :)

The walk goes for a large part side to side to the river, which runs to a lake a bit further away,to hard to reach in winter. But I hope to show you the lake coming summer, when the bus can reach there and the walk around the lake isn't 25 KM anymore :p

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The river runs all the way from Lech to Zug, and onwards, to the lake

As we walked up a little hill, and when we arrived on the top, out of the forest, the village of Lech revealed it self. The buildings all build with wood and natural colors, with roofs covered under a blanket of snow. I wanna build a house like that, some day, if I ever get the money.

And we arrived in Lech, isn't it a cute little village!

A wooden house, like most of the traditional buildings here. It was such a nice sunny day!

We took the langlauf path to the center of town, guiding us along the river and beautiful hotels which are probably expensive since everything here is at least 150 euros a nigt, good change those places charge twice that amount. I feel really thankful I got the opportunity to move here for work and stay for free in a staff room, elsewise I could never afford this place.

Beautiful hotels along the river

And it is also a good picture spot! Try to shine as much as the sun!

We arrived in the center of Lech, which is a bit less beautiful as the outside streets. Next to the center is a large mountain, with skilifts going up the mountains, and skiirs and snowboarders enjoying the slide down. They are truely enjoying their holidays, doing what they came for! I might take you there next time too :)

Life is good here in the Austrian winter!

Selfies with a 35mm lens are not that easy

We took the bus back home to Zug, since there are good connections between all villages. And believe me, the bus rides through those landscapes are one of the most beautiful rides I have experienced!

Thank you for coming along on my winter hike. I hope you got a good impression of the nature here in the Austrian mountains.

Regards,
Sascha