Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 7, 2025

2145m

Villach, Austria

Wöllaner Nock is another “giant hill” in southern Austria that boasts over 1000 m prominence. There’s nothing fancy about this objective besides perhaps the ski lifts on the north side. One could ride the lift to within 150 m elevation gain from the very summit making it basically a “freebie” and for worthless objectives like this, I would actually do that. However, I happened to have checked the maps more thoroughly and noticed a road that goes very high up on the south slopes, to about 200 m elevation from the top. There’s a hut at the road’s end suggesting this should be a viable option unless it’s a private road with a locked gate.

Doing this peak by either of the two options would earn me absolutely zero bragging right so I really didn’t care. Adam was not opposing to try to road option as it would be considerably cheaper, so that’s it. After completing Mangart I drove us back into Austria and followed Google’s direction towards Walderhütte which was the road’s end. For once, the direction given by Google was completely correct. We did have to pay the toll fee but the cost was minimal (10 EUR or something) and it was possible to pay in paper bill (unlike Mirnock nearby). The road was definitely winding and narrow and the driving was quite sketchy given the amount of downhill traffics, but that’s also the fun part.

The weather was overcast but it was going to clear up later in the evening. We unfortunately did the “ascent” too fast for that, so there was minimal view. A minute or two after starting the hike Adam noticed some splashing sound and turned around, only to see a cow shitting facing him. Thankfully I wasn’t paying that much attention to the cows. Higher up we briefly wondered off trail and what we saw immediately was an old man bending over and taking a shit. I have no idea why someone would opt to take a shit literally 5 meters from the main trail in a completely open area. This was literally a shitty hike. Near the top we were joined by hordes and hordes of tourists coming up from the tramway station to the north, and the summit area was occupied by at least 50 people at the same time.

Not doing any lingering besides upgrading our Peakbagger app we immediately started the descent, as none of us was keen on staying in the circus for any longer. There was no view anyway due to the clouds. The descent went uneventfully as we didn’t see another animal (or human) shitting, and the round trip time was 37 minutes. My plan for the following day was Grossglockner with Erica and Caspar whereas Adam would solo Sandspitze in the vicinity, so we drove NW afterwards. While driving we noticed some bumps and checking the watches we did have extra hours to kill. The spontaneous decision was then made to drive up Danielsberg for simple reason of why-not.