Der Steinerwirt 1493

I have to say that my favorite restaurant for traditional Austrian food with flair is Der Steinerwirt. Located in one of the oldest buildings in Zell am See, much like their meals, they have combined modern elements with traditional, tastefully.

Jason and I have tried several things on the menu and have found everything we have tried to be delicious. Most recently I had a lemongrass-infused pasta with grilled shrimp, while Jason stayed the more traditional route with the Wiener Schnitzel. When Pinzgauer Käse is around then I usually default to the Kasnocken myself.

Unless you get the one tall guy with long hair for a server, you should be well taken care of. Before we had internet I would pop over during non-busy times where I felt completely at home having a few white wine G'spritzt. It was one of the favorite locations to get a drink after work for Jason and his colleagues.


During the summer months they have traditional Alpine Zither music on tree-shaded patio.


Goulash with "Semmel" (bread) Dumpling


Tyrol-style fried potatoes


Tafelspitz (Austrian/Vienna style of boiling meat)served with root vegetables, creamed spinach.

Jason typically drank the local beer that was made especially for the Wirtshaus, while I leaned to white wine spritzers made with the standard food-friendly Grüner Veltliner. While we hardly every spared room for dessert, we never escaped without a Schnapps.


I think my parents enjoyed it!

This and that....

It dawned on me that I have not been doing a whole lot of anything lately. Sure, I do daily housewife things: cooking, cleaning, grocery and I have been working on cleaning up quickbooks for an organization in the US, reading IRS regulations, trying to find interest in things in the news, reading for pleasure, administrative things, but all of this at my own leisure and nothing of urgency.

I can spend hours walking alone only concentrating on the birds and on not stepping on ants. It is strange, but I am happy I have been able to achieve this state, that is, not constantly worrying about the past or future, but just being in the present.

It is annoying how this pleasant bubble can burst just by being asked a few pointed questions that even you don't know the answer to.

Anyway, here are some pictures of this and that here at home in Zell am See...

We had 4 big trees in our backyard. Now there is only 1 and an amazing view.

I made Thai Fresh Spring Rolls in an effort to clean out some of the random things in my food pantry.

We are always fascinated by this hideous "flower sculpture duck" that to me has come to symbolize that Zell is indeed a hot destination for tour buses filled with Omas.

Here is the other hideous bird that comes out for the summer crowds...sans head.

And here is Jason being silly....

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!!

May Day

I really thought today was all about bringing the cows out to pasture. Apparently it has a socialist undertone and some kids just use it as a day to party. According to wikipedia,

May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half of a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and neopagan festivals such as Samhain. May Day marks the end of the uncomfortable winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

We went on a bike ride and were a bit late for the Maifest, but Jason still gave a go at climbing the May pole...
welcome summer!!

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!

Unser Osterbaum

In our almost 8 years of marriage we have never had a Christmas tree, not to mention an Easter tree.
This year felt sort of different. So we hiked up to the Ebenbergalm to where Jason had seen some branches of Weidenkätzchen. There were enough on the ground from where the forest service had trimmed that we did not even have to hurt a tree. We admired the view, had a drink, and then rode home on a sled through slushy snow, with our Weidenkätzchen.
Frohe Ostern!

Tiefschnee!!

So this last weekend Jason and I did some winter hiking nearby. We went to the neighboring town of Saalfelden and hiked a nature trail, although there was not much nature to see except for beautiful snow!

We did find a cave with some stalagmites made from ice!

Jason did some impressive flips into the equally impressive deep snow.

Nostalgic Skiers

Every year on the Schmittenhöhe has a different type of race.


The racers wear actual antique wooden skis and the traditional, historic attire to match.


This particular day was quite foggy. A cloud was hovering on the Schmittenhöhe. It seemed eerie in a way and played with one's imagination.


Almost as if ski-ghosts from the past, who had perished on the slopes, had risen from the fog to participate in this event.


Come back to haunt the slopes.


With subtle reminders of what might have done them in.


A distillery on a sled....


...and a little mingling with the present.



Who says ghosts don't party.