Now to the route description and hike report by our mountain fex Martin -
www.bergfexmartin.at
The starting point for our tour is the car park at Schönbergkircherl, just above the Red Bull Ring. We follow the road to the left past the church and soon reach the first signpost. Trail 988 takes us further into the forest, where we follow well-marked paths that are always visible. In between, the path climbs, so we gain more than 500 metres in altitude before reaching our first summit. The path to the Adlitzkuppe, or Adlerkuppe, is not on the "main trail 988", but with a little map study or using the GPS track on your mobile phone you can find it without any problems. We take a short break and enjoy the warming sun, it was still quite fresh in the shady parts of the forest.
Then we continue our tour in the direction of Flatschacher Höhe. After a few moments, a fantastic view of the main ridge of "my Seckauer Tauern" presents itself to our right. Cloudless, the peaks still covered in snow - for minutes we enjoy the views of the Großer Ringkogel, Pletzen, Geierhaupt, Hochreichart, Maierangerkogel, the Seckauer Zinken and the Hochalm - next summer is sure to come! The trail from the Adlitzkuppe is partly free of snow and always climbs gently, but it only becomes as steep as it was on the first few kilometres on the ascent to the Zwieselberg. We continue along forest paths and open grassy areas and reach the Flatschacher Höhe at 1,363 metres shortly before noon, from where we have a fantastic view of the Aichfeld and the Größing to the south. After a somewhat longer break including drone flights, we continue our hike in the direction of the Rattenberger Höhe. (Attention: if you want to fly with your drone in this region, you have to get this geo-zone unlocked beforehand!)
After a leisurely hour with many photo stops, we stand on the Rattenberger Höhe, but immediately march on towards Zwieselberg, the highest point of our tour at 1,534 metres. We reach it shortly before half past two in the afternoon. The last few metres up to the summit are particularly hard on the "calves". Here, too, we don't linger long and follow trail 988 in a westerly direction. After about ten minutes we come to a "crossroads", where we decide to descend on trail 993, via the "Gstättner" farm. From here, we could also hike on to the Gaalerhöhe and the Fohnsdorferhütte. We trudge for a few minutes through stubbornly persistent snowfields and a little later tackle the last metres of altitude of the day, because we now have to climb the beautifully situated Hölzelkogel. I can't leave my camera in my rucksack there, the weather and the views are too beautiful.
A few metres below the Hölzelkogel we reach a forest path, which we now follow. The descent via trail 993 is always perfectly marked and partly leads down steep slopes. At the "Gstättner" we reach the "Gstättnerweg" and follow it to our tour destination - the community of Fohnsdorf with its 8,000 inhabitants. On this day we let ourselves be "chauffeured" back to the starting point - we are happy to spare ourselves the nine kilometre asphalt hike.