I might be biased, but I don’t give a damn. When I reached the Bichlalm, I was totally wet, save my waterproof shoes, the bottom of my jeans brown because of the mud the raindrops blew off the path. The power of the rain was such that I thought holes would appear in my totally useless umbrella. Springs and waterfalls emerged where they had not been a minute ago, and the thunder rolled exactly over my head, creating a rather unpleasant end-of-the-world feeling.
The Bichlalm, despite almost closing time (yesterday it was closed at this very time), kindly took me in its caring arms, served me beer and Schnapps and let me order food to pass time on their roofed terrace. Well, to be completely fair, it wasn’t that I was the only lonely hiker caught by the thunderstorm; the hut was full of people and possibly making quite a good money.
All cynicism aside, their Almerjause (they also have a Brettljause on the menu, but I don’t really know the difference) was fantastic and made me appreciate the decision of not finishing the Brettljause at the Tuxer Fernerhaus some four hours earlier. Nothing in it, with the exception of one type of cheese, perhaps, was supermarket’y. The brown Grammelschmalz, which I started with, was so tasty, it made me ignore the question of why it was actually brown. The Speck was a bit “South Tyrolean” in taste but with no unchewable crust. The hard sausage, cut into oval slices, had nothing industrial about it, and the slightly fat Schweinsbraten were quite sensational. The best thing, however, was the soft cheese, having quite a lot of taste and going extremely well with the supplied butter. Oh, and there were plenty of onions. In a way, they compensated for a totally standard mustard and lifeless horseradish, as well as for the egg slices that were so thin I could not identify them at first.
Rain or no rain, the Bichlalm offers a fantastic view over the glacier and the surrounding mountains, and I would totally agree with the slogan on their menu that it’s the nicest place all around Hintertux. On the one hand, it’s very easy because Hintertux is so small; on the other hand, it’s quite an achievement because Hintertux is beautiful.
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