Activities for the whole family in Bad Hofgastein
From the car park on the edge of the beautiful spa town of Bad Hofgastein, which has a special feature in terms of sustainability - a large number of e-car parking spaces that are powered by a forest of photovoltaic systems - we took the gondola up to the Schlossalm. When you leave the mountain station at 2,050 metres above sea level, the first thing you see is an incredibly impressive mountain panorama. Above the tree line, the mountain feeling is even more intense.
Such an excursion to the cool heights is particularly suitable on very hot days in summer, as experience has shown that it is always a few degrees cooler high up on the mountain, allowing you to escape the heat and give your body a little break.
Right at the mountain station, you can choose between various hiking trails and play areas. Turn right and you will find the rock creatures. The silhouette of a horse, a shark and other animals - shaped by nature - can be discovered here by children on a circular hiking trail, while we parents can enjoy the wonderful landscape at the same time. And thanks to the exciting task of searching for the creatures, even some of those who don't like walking don't realise that they've been on the trail for quite a while.
As soon as you leave the gondola, you are greeted by a wooden marble run, where we spent a lot of time. The children had great fun and ran up and down the track many times. The ball always finds new paths and you can take it home at the end of the day as a great souvenir of an eventful day.
At the end of the ball track there is a sure-footed course, a practice via ferrata and a secured 8 metre high highline, a slackline that you can use to get from a smaller rock to a larger one.
The path leads downhill to the old ‘Kleine Scharte’ mountain station, where there is a mountain restaurant with a great playground and a gigantic bouncy cushion, which my two kids loved straight away. Right next to it is a slackline park with various lines and levels of difficulty to train concentration, coordination and balance.
Further down, there are several family-friendly circular trails, some of which are also suitable for pushchairs. You can keep to the right and take a leisurely stroll to the large reservoir and around it. From there, there are also various other hikes for different levels.
We decided to hike towards the viewing platform. We reached it via the exciting motor skills trail, which is guaranteed to have something for everyone in the family with stations for coordination, balance and dexterity, and even my little one, who is just four years old, had a lot of fun.
Experienced climbers with the right safety equipment can also climb various routes on a rock face or cross the 40 metre long rope bridge from a ledge to the viewing platform. Below this, there is also a boulder garden with different sized boulders, so it is advisable to pack a climbing harness and other equipment if you have it so that you can make the most of the many opportunities around the Schlossalm.
To recharge our batteries, we then made ourselves comfortable at one of the snack spots. Re-energised, we hiked back to the mountain station. Supplied with ice cream and with two absolutely happy children, I then boarded the gondola and we travelled back down into the valley. We rounded off the absolutely successful excursion in the cosy Alpentherme Gastein.
