More Vacationing in Austria: Klamms!

Here in the middle of the Alps we have a ton of gorges to explore. There are a handful less than 20 KM away that we have been checking off our list. Here are a few pictures from the Seisenbergklamm. It is directly in the town Weißbach bei Lofer in an area called the Saalachtal (Saalach Valley).

The Seisenbergklamm, much like the nearby Vorderkaserklamm that we went to when my parents were here last summer, had a nature trail where you were informed of the flora and fauna of the area.



The Liechtensteinklamm is near St. Johann in Pongau is one of the deepest and longest Klamms in the Alps.

I have had a lot of free time of late, so I have been trying to learn new things. One of the things I have been reading up on is the Ayurvedic diet. I learned that I have a "Pitta dosha", and when it is "imbalanced" things like walking around water help. (I can feel your eyes rolling. :) )



It even has a little legend:

The blacksmith of Oberarl, in the Plankenau area of St. Johann, had promised his crippled daughter to the devil if the devil would deliver the famous Gastein hot springs to his doorstep. The deal would have to be completed before the rooster crowed in the morning. The devil agreed and went to work in the dark of night. However, the blacksmith’s wife, a sly old woman, found out about the deal. To put an end to her husband’s boundless greed, she dunked the rooster into the drinking trough, causing it to crow before daybreak. The devil, who was at that moment flying through the Klamm with the hot springs, heard the rooster crow at Oberarl and realized he was too late.
Filled with rage, he threw the hot springs into the Klamm where no human being would ever find them again. Indeed, to this day, no one has been able to capture the healing waters and pipe them out of the gorge.

I do not know why I am so obsessed with waterfalls! I am sure most people will not find 7 pictures of rushing water quite as interesting as I do. But the feeling of being in these Klamms just makes me tingle. I do not know if it is the cool blue of the water, the changes in speed and levels, or the general beauty of this earth that just moves me.

Finally, Murmeltier!

This last weekend we decided to vacation in Austria. The weather was not super on Saturday, but that did not keep us from enjoying the outdoors.
We decided to try to hike to the top of the nearby Walcher waterfall. The waterfall is located right before the toll on the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße and the base is about 1200 meters above sea level. The Quelle of the Walcher, which is also the base of the Walcher Kees, a glacier, is about 2200 meters above sea level. So we had about 800 meter elevation climb.

Halfway into our climb, I was complaining about how we have been in Austria for over 2 years and I have yet to see a Murmeltier, which I guess are Groundhogs in the US. Not 2 seconds had the words come out of my mouth then I glance over to the left and down the hill a few feet sat one!
It was a curious little creature. Jason and I took dozens of pictures of it and managed to scoot ourselves closer and closer so that we were practically sitting right next to it. It kept running in to it's hole, but as Jason and I quietly sat there waiting, it would poke it's head out to check on us!

As we continued further up the mountain, we saw several! They had a shrill bird-like chirping cry that I assume they used to notify the others that people were coming.
Hiking in these parts of Austria is basically straight up and straight down. One thing that is so amazing about the Alps is how suddenly the environment can change. We went from pine trees to an alpine glacier basin that was snow, clouds, and wild purple and white crocus.

A closer picture of the glacier.


Part of the trail went under the waterfall. You can barely see me on the left on the trail.
This picture was taken on the decent. On the left, you can see a zigzag outline in white, of the snow covered trail that we took up. There were two Alms, although neither of them were open yet because apparently it is still winter here!!

45 days and 1006 KM

I did it! I put over 1000 KM on my snowboard this season. 90 KM in the last week! The surprise snow on April 1 really helped.

I kept track of my kilometerage on www.skiline.cc. I actually think I might have found a glitch in the system (according to computer nerd Jason) because instead of showing up as 1000 KM it started over, and shows me as 1.006 KM. I Y2K'd the thing!


The question I have to ask myself is, "What now?" I have traded my snowboarding boots for my bike and hiking boots. The picture above is of the Schmittenhöhe from the mountain across the lake, which I decided to climb yesterday. I was not in Austria on the 18th of April, the last day of my pass, to see what exactly the slope conditions were at the season end, but as you can see from the picture above the snow is almost gone.

My hike yesterday was about 3.5 hours/10 KM long with about 600 meter change in altitude. I know I do not like trading in the downhill boarding for the uphill climbing, but it is a different way to appreciate the mountains I guess. I hiked number 89 and part of 84 above Thumersbach. I found a few waterfalls that were very worthy of a sit-down, but I resisted.

Because it is the low season, the Alms are not yet operating during the weeks. There is a romantic concept of an Almsommer, spending summers in the Alps in an Alm, and until I went to this open-air museum in Salzburg, I was a bit unclear on the purpose they served. Apparently they were not just built as a place for hikers to get beers, but were the summer residence of the farmer, or worker from a farm, while tending the cows in the summer months.

From this side of the mountains there is a lovely view of the Gletscher.

Skiing the Gletscher: Kitzsteinhorn

As I am sure I have whined about this before, "winter" here runs from October through April, so finding something to do here other than skiing can be somewhat of a challenge.

Considering how slushy the snow has been on home mountain Schmittenhöhe, I suggested to Jason we go do some glacier skiing. The Kitzsteinhorn is less than 10 KM away and it gets fresh powder every night!

Jason and I get the "we live here" discount too, so it is not too terribly expensive.

Before hitting the slopes, we went to the top observatory deck. Here is a different view of Zell am See, framed by clouds.


The skiing was OK. Yes, there was fresh powder, but there were also a whole lot of tourists. The past few days on the Schmittenhöhe had been relatively tourist-free, which surprised me because Zell am See seems to be alive with guests. Evidentially they were all just coming to the Kitzsteinhorn. Sometimes when it is too crowded it is hard to enjoy yourselves because you have to be such a defensive skier/boarder.

The slopes are all above the tree line so you can see everything. I got a little excited by all the challenging rodeos (ungroomed marked trails, for more advanced riders), but not sure Jason enjoyed them as much... the quality of snow and the terrain made for some challenging riding. Here Jason is coming out of the bowl in the background (that nearly killed us).

What is interesting is that the actual slopes are very high up, higher then the top of the Schmittenhöhe, so between 2000-3200 meters.

There is also no way down to the parking lot, which means the slopes all start closing as early 3:45 so that people can get shuttled down to the parking lot via one of the 3 main lifts before 4:30. Since everyone feels like they need to make that last lift, it can get kinda sciencefairriffic.

Also, there is only one slope down to catch the final lift that takes you to the parking lot. No matter how good/bad people are, EVERYONE starts stampede-skiing it at 4:00. By this point of the season the run is literally a sheet of ice. Now add a million inexperienced, over confident and unaware skiers and you have challenge.

Still, it was a nice change of scenery and a good break from the snow-cone spring conditions I have been putting up with. It was really fun to shred some new territory and get a final taste of real snow before summer hits!

Alpinzoo

What a better way to spend a Saturday then watching Jason interact with animals! A visit to the Alpinzoo in Innsbruck was a perfect way to enjoy the spring-like weather on a Saturday.
Braunbär

Steinbock

Actually, we were really impressed with the conditions in which the animals were being kept. Alright, it is still a "cage" and it is not the wild, but we felt the zoo did an excellent job in creating the habitats and the animals for the most part (according to Jason the animal whisperer, the animals seemed "happy").
Steinadler

Most of the animals were visible, except for the Murmeltier, a wild cat and deer. I had really wanted to see a Murmeltier after seeing all the signs in the Alps pointing to where Murmeltier were supposed to be visible.
Luchs

All of the animals were from Austria; they either continue to live in Austria, are part of a project to revive an endangered species in Austria, and there were a few that had lived in Austria in the past (like Moose) and no longer. It was neat to be able to realistically place them in the areas that we have become so familiar with. Actually, I had just seen Gämse on the Schmittenhöhe this past week!
Gämse
Now we at least know what the Austrian Osterhase looks like....
Schneehase

The Alpinzoo is easy to get to from Innsbruck, because it is practically in the city center! Innsbruck is one of those amazing cities that has the Alps dramatically and practically growing from the center of town. From the city center you can walk or drive there, or take a very short train ride from the Congress Center located in the city center.

Zell am See has competition: Hallstadt

This weekend we went to Hallstadt, a UNESCO World Heritage site here in Austria, about 2 hours away from Zell am See.

What else better do we have to do then visit other cute Austrian towns with lakes? Or towns like Zell am See without the lake? Yes, we live in tourist central and sometimes we find amusement in comparing the tacky tourist attractions we have in Zell am See with other tourist towns.

Actually this town had some cute little touches.
They also had a waterfall that practically dropped into the town. Bonus points.

I am glad we decided to visit it in the dead of winter because by the looks of the gates that appeared to be there to prevent traffic from driving through, and the many signs available in Asian languages, this is a tourist science fair in the summer.

Thanks to a huge prehistoric cemetery that was discovered near Hallstadt, Hallstadt gave it's name to the "Hallstatt culture", which was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC (European Early Iron Age). It extends from 1200 BC to 500 BC.

We toured the freezing city museum to see some of the artifacts that were found in the cemetery. It was worth it.

As a child, I had visited the salt mines there, one of the many things this little town is famous for. It is supposedly the first known salt mine. It was a fun time and still recommend it no matter how "touristy" you might think it is.

Krimmler Wasserfälle

Today was very warm, which annoyed me because I want it to snow so that there will be better conditions on the slopes.
Warm weather does make for a lovely breakfast on our balcony though.

After some discussion we decided that we would drive to Krimml and see the waterfall.

Research on the website indicated that access might be a problem for the winter. This is one minor annoyance I have living in Austria. "Winter" lasts from October through April, so many of the natural attractions are closed for 7 months out of the year. We learned that "closed" just meant that you did not have to pay to use the walkway.
The waterfall is a 380 meter drop and is Europe's highest waterfall. It consists of a "ground" level fall,

a "middle" fall,
and a "high" fall.

We hiked up to the middle fall and took a picture of the highest level fall. It is also part of the Hohe Tauern National Park system.

Happy me, the waterfall is on the southern side of the valley and therefore was not as exposed to so much sun (as opposed to the north side of the valley where the snow is already melting so much). It still felt much like a winter wonderland to me!
Amen!