The Rest of our Austrian Vacation

The rest of our vacation was a blast.  We snowboarded Thursday and rented skis on Friday.  Saturday was a day of driving, and unfortunately we ran into even MORE traffic on the way home... It was a fantastic week but its nice to be back...

A break in the sun

Me snowboarding!

Our final night in the Alps.

Rodelbahn

Thursday night we decided to go sledding.  Not just any sledding, sledding down a 5km sledding run.  When would we ever have a chance to do that again?? Probably never... though it almost happened that we never got to go in the first place...

I really wanted to go sledding.  I looked in the tourist info book to figure out how to do it.  All I could find was the name of the place and the phone number.  Not helpful.  I went to the tourist information center.  There, I found out where on a map the sledding place was (not helpful), and that I should call if I wanted more info.  I tried to ask more specific questions.
How do we get there?
Call a taxi.  Or drive.  It says right here in the info book.
Can we rent sleds?
Yes.
What do we do with them when we're done?
Why don't you call?
Do you know how much it costs?
No.
So we can go sledding (pointing) here anytime?
You should call.

Grrr... very un-helpful.  Strike one for info center woman.

According to the map, the sledding hut is about 3 miles from the closest bus stop.  We'll definitely have to take a cab.  The info lady circled the statement "taxis and traffic can travel to and from the hut from 13:00-14:00, 15:30-17:00 and 19:00-22:00.  Fine.  We'll find a taxi between those times. But what about the sled?  She says they rent them at the hut, but how do we get them back up there???

Never mind the sled rental (I decide at 5:45pm, 15 minutes before all the stores close), we'll go to the sports store and rent one.

The guy at the store, who, for the record, does not work at the tourist info center, says "don't rent a sled here, you can just leave them at the bottom of the hill!"

Really?  The woman at the info center couldn't have said that???  Strike two for her.

So 8pm comes along and we're bundled up to go sledding.  We get into the taxi (because it's between 19:00&22:00) and start on our way to the sledding hut.

The road is just wide enough for one car and we're in a van.  The driver is driving 50mph around hairpin curves on a road covered with snow.  Next to the van on one side the mountain climbs at a ridiculous angle, and on the other side, drops away- no guard rail, fence, snowbank....  The driver starts talking on a cell phone while accelerating.  I keep telling myself he does this every day, but we're all holding on for dear life.

Finally, after a 15 minute ride from you know where, we are deposited at the top of a hill next to a dark house.  Hopefully someone's there, we think...

We find the sled rental door which says "sledding from 10:30pm on."

REALLY?? The woman from the info center couldn't have said THAT??  Strike THREE!!!

Turns out the sledding run is also the road that runs to and from the hut.  So you can't sled during the hours traffic is allowed to drive on the road.  Ridiculous!!

Fortunately, the hut also had a restaurant with awesome apple strudel!

At 10:30 we rent our sleds and procede to barrel down the sledding run, around the hairpin turns, next to the scary drop offs, and past the tiny lights the illuminate the path (every once and a while).  It was terrifyingly awesome!  Once I figured out how to steer a sled that is...

Unfortunately, I have no sledding pictures.  Partly because it was very dark, but mostly because I had to hold onto my sled for dear life.

Despite our adventures getting TO the sledding, I think it was my favorite part of our Austrian vacation!

A Sweet Ice Cave

Once, when we lived in Austin, we went to the Inner Space Cavern.  It was awesome.  I mean, we were adults, and all the other people on the tour were little kids with their parents and the tour guide had all sorts of silly stories about the rock formations (like the "ice cream cone"), which were obviously meant for kids, but it was still cool to see all the stalactites and stalagmites and underground rivers and things.

Bob and I have also been known for making snow forts.  Usually, when there is enough snow and we visit my parents for Christmas, we pile up all the snow from the deck in the back yard and carve it out into an awesome snow fort.

So, when we saw the sign for the Ice Cave, it was like two really awesome things put together- caves and snow forts- and we knew we had to make time to see it.

We had to ride all the way up to the top of the Glacier to see it.  After paying for our tickets, we waited around for the tour with about 30 other people at the "Ice Palace Container".

We all followed our tour guide to a sheet in the wall on the backside of a ski slope... (wasn't looking too promising at that point).

Once inside, it started out like a giant snow fort.  We had plenty of time to examine the snow crystals on the wall as the forty people in front of us snaked into the depths of the cave.  After 15 minutes or so, when we were starting to wonder if we'd ever get past the entrance, we realized what was causing the hold up.

We had to trek down a set of ice stairs.  This might not have been a problem if it weren't for the following two issues.  1: it was warm at the glacier- above zero- so the snow and ice was melting and refreezing.  Even with the rubber treads, those stairs were slippery.  2: We were wearing snowboard boots- not the best range of motion, but pretty decent boot-like rubber soles with nice thick treads.  Other people were wearing SKI BOOTS.  Slick, plastic-bottomed, non-bending ski boots.  I'm surprised no one fell and hurt themselves!!

So far, the ice cave was way cooler than our snow forts.  We never had stairs.

As we snaked through, the line kept moving even slower...

Because we had to climb down metal ladders.  REALLY?? Metal ladders?  With ice and SKI BOOTS!??!  You could never have something like this in the US.  It was like a law suit waiting to happen.  But all the ski boot clad tourists clambered down, slipping once in a while, but always catching themselves.

It was actually very beautiful.  Aside from the fact that we crammed 40 or 50 people into an ice cave meant for a tour of 10, it was just like an ice cave with stalactites and stalagmites and everything.

We learned (at least I think- the tour guide spoke German) that the ice on the Glacier shifts up to 40 meters a year and that the inside of the ice cave is always changing- much quicker than the inside of a rock cave.  My favorite part of the tour was the room where they lit the ice formations in different colors.

It was really awesome to see an entire cave made of ice.  I wish we had the time and money to take the real expedition where you get to crawl through things and have to be clipped into a harness, but the one hour tour was pretty cool (literally).

My standards for snow-fort making have definitely increased.  Good thing we'll be moving to a place where they get a lot of snow in the winter...

Snowboarding!

The weather in Austria is fantastic!!  Warm and sunny, but still enough snow to snowboard on!

We spent Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday snowboarding.  I was so excited to get out on the slopes that I got up super early on Sunday.  Here is the very early dawn out our window.

We snowboarded at a mountain close to our apartment (we could walk there) on Sunday.  

From the lift

Bob on the lift.

I haven't been snowboarding very long.  After just the first day I was covered in bruises.  Here is one of the times I wasn't falling.

The first mountain was nice, but the most beautiful views were from the Glacier- the highest mountain in the ski valley.  It was so high up that to get to the top, there were THREE gondolas.  Crazy.

We had a blast snowboarding.  There isn't much else to say about how awesome I am at it, so here are some pictures to show how incredible it was.

Looking down into the valley where we stayed.

After a long day of snowboarding, it was always nice to stop at one of the mountain huts at the top or bottom of a lift, or this little place at the bottom of the Glacier, for a drink or a snack.

And it was even nicer to get home to a warm shower!