I won’t stop until I get there.

He is used to physical activity as a forestry worker, mountain runner and cross-country skier. He is a member of the Austrian veteran national cross-country ski team. At the 2016 World Championships in the Finnish town of Vuokatti he missed winning the 32km bronze medal in the 55-60 age category by just 1.3 seconds. Bojan Wakounig interviewed Toni Wutte for the September 2nd 2016 issue of Novice magazine. Read the whole interview here:

The Alpe-Adria-Trail is advertised as “Hiking in the Garden of Eden”.
Did you discover paradise?

Toni Wutte: You can discover everything. Dense spruce forests and deep valleys, wonderful views, seas of flowers, gardens. Particularly in Upper Carinthia the farmhouses have especially beautifully cultivated gardens. If you drive past in a car, you miss all this. And some gorges only reveal their charm when you hike through them on foot. You see the farmers working on the steep slopes, which they have to mow. Most people in our area have given up this work, because they seem to prefer working in the surrounding factories or in Klagenfurt. In other places they have stayed and do their work rather than having to move away. In the Möll Valley the slopes are well mowed. It can also be seen in Slovenia. Once you get to Goriška Brda, you really feel the change-over to a wine growing area.

Why did you actually set off alone?

At first I looked for people to hike with, but nobody had time. Then I remembered Reinhold Messner’s words: You can only walk alone. Everything else is walking in front of or behind someone.

You are very athletic. Would you also have been able to attempt the whole trail if you had been less physically prepared?

I would have needed longer, because the daily stages would have been shorter. 35 to 40 kilometres are no problem for me, because I work in the forest all day long. Still, you should be reasonably fit, you have to carry at least 10 kg of luggage on your back. It is also not unusual to climb more than a thousand metres in altitude a day. If you hike two stages a day, then you are up to two thousand metres. Most of the trail is on forest and gravel roads and paths. But a hike like this is worth it for everyone. You never know beforehand whether you will manage the whole thing, you have to just give it a go. On the times it got a bit more difficult, I saw it as a sport – with the attitude that I won’t stop until I get there.

Where did you sleep?

At farmhouses, in guesthouses and in hotels, wherever there was accommodation to be had. If there wasn’t room, I had to look elsewhere. In Tolmin I had to walk an extra 5 kilometres, because there was a Heavy Metal Festival there at the end of July. Each night cost between 25 and 45 euros, and with all the other costs you can reckon on about 70 to 80 euros a day, if you want to eat and drink well too. That’s why I didn’t lose weight, there’s a reason it’s called walking in the Garden of Eden! It’s good to eat what’s typical of the individual regions, by the way.

How did you find the orientation and signposting?

Usually I orientate myself by the sun and don’t often look at a hiking map. At Lipica on the Karst, though, I got completely lost. It wasn’t my mistake, somebody had turned the signpost around, so that it pointed in the other direction. I walked five kilometres in the wrong direction. Every now and then I missed the path a little, because it is easy to overlook something, but that was never a problem. All in all, the trail is well marked, so that you can’t get lost. And if you do, you quickly find your way back.