In which the clouds feast on everything (Austria part V).

But before the clouds rolled in, there was yet another beautiful, sunny morning, another forgotten valley, another waterfall-stuffed river, and many more musical cows. This valley in particular was in the Sundergrund, which one finds after driving through a mountain and out into and along the green, green Zillergrund.

One thing I don't think I've mentioned yet is that the rocks tend to sparkle in this part of the world. Really sparkle. I'd be hiking along and all of a sudden a rock would catch the sun in just the right moment and leave me thinking, "Gee, I wonder who threw that disco ball out of the airplane window?!". The effect isn't nearly as impressive when photographed. After doing a little research, we figured that the majority of the glitz we were seeing was gneiss. Nice!

More exciting weather moved in that afternoon, so we made pizza and stayed inside. 

We had a lot of rain and some dramatic thunderstorms during the last few days, though I've forgotten the what and when by now.

We wanted to go on one last hike on our last day and decided on a ski resort (closed for the season) further up the valley where we had not yet been. The weather seemed to be improving, but the cloud level never hung quite high enough to show us the alpine views. That was alright though -- we'd had plenty of those and the mist-soaked valley was pretty dramatic in itself.

The sun was back again by the next morning, just in time to finish packing up the car and retrace our drive through the Gerlos Pass and on through other magnificent scenery. We still wanted to tour the ice cave we'd checked out briefly at the beginning of the trip, so headed back to Werfen.

The tour of the ice cave was pretty adventurous and very different from the caves I'd experienced before. Photography wasn't allowed inside (and for good reason) so I decided not to lug my camera along in the hot hot heat. The journey there was part of the experience -- first you drive up up up the mountain road to the commercial entrance, then hike a short distance to a cable car, take the cable car zip zip further up the mountain (during which you pretend not to be listening intently to the conversation next to you in which a girl from Massachusetts jokes around with some Austrian kids in English), then hug your way around the mountain curve for a while longer until you get to the cave entrance. There you are instructed to put on your coats and hats (which feels a little ridiculous because it's so hot outside), the tourers are lined up, and oil lamps are evenly distributed along the line. Then the tour starts and the line passes shrieking through a rough door in the wall, met on the other side by cold darkness and an impressively strong, freezing wind that puffs out all the oil lamps in a moment. The oil lamps are relit and voilà! Black. From the low glow of the oil lamps you can make out a giant mound of ice and a rickety, partly frozen-over staircase that will require all of your attention to ascend. The tour guide stops at various natural ice sculptures and illuminates them by striking magnesium flares, burning bright white. Ooohs and aaahs. You learn all about the Histories while trying to wrap your mind around the extreme temperature change, thinking, "Well duh, ice cave". The tour continues like this, up staircases, through narrow passages opening into giant rooms, and eventually down down down and out, where it is hot and the light is blinding. Psych. Later, you go to the shop and look at the postcard images, which are very impressive but not entirely truthful. I know because I was there, and the images I have in my mind are not clear and colorful, but rather fleeting, flare-lit moments in which I try to take in as many details as I can before the light burns out. 

All this is followed by the best Apfelstrudel of the trip and a drive back down the mountain, the Hohenwerfen Castle growing ever larger in the descent. 

From there we made our way back to Salzburg and flew home the next day, away from the mountains and back to that sweet, flat city I know so well. 

In which there are even more of those boring dramatic vistas (Austria part IV).

The following day was devoted to r&r with b&b (book&balcony), as it was vacation, after all. And in order to prepare for the exhausting act of turning pages, chocolate chip banana pancakes were an order.  

The valley hosted a terrific cloud show that evening...

...which ended with a cartoony interpretation of the Witch-king of Angmar reaching out his ghostly hand. 

The next adventure was the most scenically spectacular yet, and if I had to choose, this would be my favorite. Destination: Zillertal Alps, Friesenberghaus, 2498 m (8196 ft), which as I just learned upon a-googling, apparently has a nice bit of WWII history. Getting there involved first driving up and up and through roughly hewn tunnels to the Schlegeis Reservoir. As with many mountain roads, we had to pay a pretty hefty toll at the beginning. However, thanks to these hefty tolls, all the potentially dangerous mountain roads were in great shape, for which we were very grateful.

Once arrived at the reservoir, we first walked across the genius of engineering holding back lots of blue-green mountain runoff. From the middle there was a great view of the valley below and of the road we had just driven.

 

The hike itself led through woods and fields and over streams, views broadening the higher we got. As the Friesenberghaus at the end of the trail is a set summertime establishment for eating and sleeping, the path leading there was beautifully tended and relatively easy to ascend. Alpine hiking is fun, and I much prefer the kind of alpine hiking that also allows me to breathe.

Check out this Turkeyzilla cloud conquering the mountain! See it? See it?!

The Friesenberghaus was not yet open for the season, but supplies were already being airlifted to the cabin from below. A bright red helicopter made several trips up and down and made the swift and skillful maneuvering look easy.

We arrived at the cabin just in time for the seasonal workers to start their elaborate picnic on the porch. Luckily we had a picnic, too, and that bread and cheese never tasted better. Then we poked around for a little while outside, though there wasn't much to see with meters of snow covering the nearby lake and other attractions. A few more swigs of snow-flavored water and down we went.

  

On this particularly warm day, snowfalls quickly morphed into waterfalls and filled the valley with their gushing (as always, click on the picture to enlarge -- do it!).

One waterfall that we crossed with ease in the morning had been pumped up substantially by the time we got back to it at the end of the hike. The simple wire line strung up as a handhold then became more of a lifeline as the bridge of wooden planks was doused again and again with mighty splashes.

A wonderful hike, to say the least.

We stuck closer to home the next day, deciding upon the local Gerlossteinwand. It was one of the home peaks, clearly visible from the balcony. Getting there meant crossing the valley and then taking a cable car up to the trailhead, which rose grandly over the Zillertal. This deposited us in time to see some paragliders take off, whooping and yeehawing above. 

The trail on this route was the shortest we'd done yet, but also the steepest and meanest and most neglected. Despite the heat, parts were still completely covered in snow, making it necessary to figure out new routes or just plow through to the best of our ability. Luckily there were many other hikers there (including an exuberant black poodle named "Otto"), some of whom had so kindly footprinted safe paths through the snowy bits. 

After what felt like an excruciating long battle with gravity and my body (even though it was only an hour and a half or so), we finally made it to the summit, which turned out to be a gently sloping meadow covered in wildflowers.

The easier route that we had selected to take back down was great for a while, until it disappeared under winter. We then had to decide whether to turn back or take a chance on finding the trail again at the bottom after "skiing" down the mountainside. Skiing it was -- and fun -- and by far the quickest option. Thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon and turning back would have cut it close. Thankfully it all worked out in the end, just got a bit wetter than anticipated.

We got back to the cable car just in time for it to start raining, and rain it did. After all the smashing weather we'd had, it was about time for a little more meteorological excitement.