Chasing the snowline

Despite a couple of stormy setbacks, the weather has now reached the setting: 't-shirt' pretty comprehensively, if not at night for people brought up south of the british isles... This week is EGU, where 11,000 geoscientists gather to agree on the fact that Vienna is very nice and that science is fun, especially when some other person did all the hard work so you can just enjoy the results! Today I saw talks about the methane/ethane lakes/ seas of Titan (there is a strait between the northern and southern lobes of Kraken Mare called semi-unofficially the Throat of the Kraken, amazing), a whole bunch on mantle rocks and one on the incredible nanocrystalline structures of mollusc shells, sea urchin teeth etc. Brachiopods have done for 500 million years what is technologically beyond us today!

But enough of the hurly burly present, lets us look a loong way back to a time before I temporarily stopped hiking and started working to deadlines, a cooler, but no less beautiful time, known to some as 'March'. I made use of my actual proper map of the alps southwest of Vienna around the Schneeberg to plan my own route for this hike. This was very rewarding as I could select roads less travelled that were empty of people and led up and down interesting ways. I am constantly grateful I have map knowledge, it is one of the most important of the knowledges I posses.

The route took us along the sharp gorge I previously walked along at the end of the Wiener Wasserleitungsweg, and then veered up the rather convex height profile of the valley walls, ending up at about 1300m, where the snow had melted so recently the plants there were still damp and pressed flat to the ground. Hellebores abounded, this time younger and showing more colour rather than the pale green unearthly colour they take on when they age.

The way down led through a really proper limestone gorge, with slowly steepening and really dramatic walls, cutting a long notch into the otherwise rather sheer drops back down onto the town which hid the train station for the return journey. Gorges are wonderful to walk along and always look amazingly dramatic, sadly though because of the vast range of light conditions from dark shadow to bright sky, they usually look kind of terrible in photographs!! The few remaining in this set are my best attempts.

Bis bald,

Der Tom

A few ladders in the Steinwandklamm

A post relating to activities from quite a while back now... It's been spring since March, it's lovely! We've had a few April showers recently, distressing the locals but delivering really a very home-y feeling. There's nothing like the sun breaking through after the rainstorm! But unfortunately the last few weeks I didn't get out hiking because I needed the time for some well earned resting from all the working I had to do. I know, I didn't think that was part of the plan either! But sometimes one needs to have a day where one cleans the house, one's things, and oneself, not to mention actually going to a shop while it is open so you can eat the next day...

Hart's tongue ferns in the gorge

Luckily for you, internet, I did collect a backlog of images from March to show off. Todays photos come from a hike in the hills just a way north of the Schneeberg. Out of the Wienerwald, the highest peaks here are already nudging Ben Nevis heights, but are of course still completely forested and thus a little underwhelming. There is a well known crop of waterfalls and gorges in the area though, our goal for the hike.

In my magical book of hike near Vienna, hands down the best book I have purchased here for sheer value and enjoyment, this hike is the only one giving the prestigious black difficulty level. The reason for this is that in the gorge (Steinwandklamm) itself is a sort of mini-klettersteig (via ferrata) of a whole bunch of ladders and even a couple of mini caves to walk through, cautiously protecting your head. It's a whole lot of fun, and *probably* not as dangerous as the photos look... Nonetheless, I am pretty certain health and safety regulations in Britain wouldn't be very happy about it. Interesting really, as you're not banned from scrambling up Tryfan (scrambling is at your own risk) but somehow I feel we would draw the line as soon as something was actually man made and lawsuits could come into play...

Sheep friends, hi!

Anyhow, hope you enjoy the spring-y fare: ladders and sheep and flowers oh my!

Der Tom