Round the Horn.

Day 3.

I woke to find a view of mountains.
"Oh bugger! Now I'll have to go up something."
My research outside Erpfendorf TI had left me with a cunning plan, I would buy the Mountain Kart combiticket, a unique way to attempt suicide twice on the same mountain. Basically a ticket up the gondola, a go down on the mountain cart, and another go on the gondola, so that if you wanted to you could kart down again.
On the way up my heart headed bootwards, I had seen the kart track, with man in kart heading downwards, if the window had been open I'm sure I could have heard the creak of his knuckles on the brakes. At the top I started off to do the round route encompassing the top of the Kitzbuhel Horn, there was a choice of two paths (it's a circuit), I elected for the sharp "up" as opposed to the shallow down, I don't like down and a sharp down would have been hell. I stared up the ascent, my heart now pressing heavily on my big toe. Off we go!
Some hundreds of meters later the path leveled under a cliff, actually between a cliff, and turned the curve of the mountain by means of a hole in the intervening spur, I had caught up with the German Ladies Walking Group by this time, they were doing a complex photo shoot:
"Heidi unt Berthe"
"Heidi unt Kathi"
"Heidi unt Lucie"
"Lucie unt Kathi"
"Alles keine Berthe"
You get the drift. With breath-holding there was room to pass, I did, and got onto the tarmac road that leads up to the radio mast and the top. Lurking behind the shoulder of the mountain was the rest of the Alps, with snow, even Gross Glockner was cloudless.

Some Alps

I summitted, then left to continue round, the path was sod and soil with the odd  bit of ski slope, my attention was drawn by a couple who had obviously found something, it was a marmot

A marmot, the small thing in the middle,
no the other small thing.

 (see previous postings for an idea of the rarity of this event). Suitably impressed I continued  round the corner and down the slope like a sprightly nonagenarian. I was overtaken by one of those men who have hydraulic rams in place of their joints, and sport an absolute faith in the underfoot ( I have none, due to experience ) he was "accompanied" by his wife, who after she stopped to shed layers, got out her phone and made a call. Several hundred meters away the Bergmeister came to a grinding halt, after a few seconds his head drooped and he started kicking the tussocks, now he was in "trouble", I felt better.
Eventually I returned to the start, now it was Kart time.
"Sign that and watch the video." I always enjoy expert advice.
"Helmet!"
"Oh yeah."
Searching amongst the karts for the right size I opt for an "L", the only size I could opt for, so much for the video.
"Can I leave my bag here?"
"Are you coming back up?"
"Umm.  Yes."
"Put it under the table."
After my initial trepidation I discovered that I was having tremendous fun, gravity is wonderful, providing you have wheels ... and brakes. Seven kilometres later I rolled to a halt at the bottom of the gondola. I went back up and had beer!

A Good Day to Dry Hard

Day 3.

It rained, quite a lot. I went to the gorge on the bus, after I found the start, I found the notice board, there was the 45 minute route, the 2.5 hour route and the 4.5 hour route. At this point etc., for I went on the 4.5 hour route. The Gorge itself was lovely, tastefully engineered as you can see,

but, ironically, a little low on the water front. At the top I found some sort of encampment featuring a giant wooden foot and a couple of slack lines, it took me five seconds to realise that slacklining was not my forte. I continued along the wet path, discovering at one point that walking didn't appear to be my forte either. However I eventually arrived at the Jagersteig, my predetermined make or break point, peering into the crepuscular dark of the forest, I determined it might be drier than, say, rolling in the stream behind me. My new cheap waterproof coat was proving to be 50% correct, though to be fair this could have been a storm flap problem (like it didn't work or somesuch). I pulled together the reserve of Red Riding Hood and moved up into the Grimm darkness.
The path did the usual series of soaring v's, before contouring round to a col and dumping me in the mountain pastures or alms. Fortunately it dumped me on an access road so that I didn't have to do that much skating. I descended the road to the Angeralm which made its presence felt with a weathercock poking over the top of the hill, normally, this being lunchtime, it would be full of jolly Austrians washing down plates of hot carbohydrate with lashings of cold beer, instead it just dripped, sullenly. From there a connecting path to the Huberalm, only 22 metres of descent, waht could go wrong, surprisingly nothing. As the alm focused through the continuing rain, I could see a cow, if Milka made rain-sodden chocolate, this was their cow. Closer still and I could see a blonde in the door of the alm who had probably sized me up as a dead loss (she could have waved hot chocolate at me, that would have worked), I could also see a variety of strange objects under the eaves,

Alright lads, don't get up.

one of which appeared to be a sheep-shaped log (actually a mule-shaped log, but that's mule as a sort of sheep, and I didn't want to confuse you.) As you can see there was an entire petting zoo hiding from the rain. Now when sheep stand their ground you realise that the weather is .. inclement, millenia of prey animal reactions gone at a stroke. The raising of the heads that you can see in the picture was more from interest than a flight reaction, basically they are saying, "What on earth are you doing out in this?" I didn't have a good answer, passed within three inches (7cm) of the cow, which gave me a look that spoke volumes. Such eloquence could not be denied, I consulted the map, called off the descent through the woods, and, once again, added a couple of miles to the journey by taking the forest track, I arrived at the bottom 15 minutes after the bus had left it, as I stepped into the square at Erpfendorf the rain stopped, the next bus was in just over an hour. I strolled through the town and a minute later had discovered nothing open but the Tourist Information, which wasn't really open, I decided to walk to the Kneippenage (I have explained Kneippe before) and did what sensible people do there - had lunch. I then returned and perused the leaflets outside the, now shut, TI., learned a few things, and got on the mercifully on-time bus.
Later I made a discovery, there's an awful lot you can hang from a radiator with the right tools, even unstealable coat hangers can be pressed into service! The evening was supposed to be a barbecue, it wasn't.

Trembling in Tyrol

Once again a late decision finds me back in Austria, this time at the Hotel Park in Sankt Johann in Tyrol. The flight was uneventful but did flag up a small warning, the cloud on the horizon no bigger than a man's fist, actually a cloud covering most of Austria. When combined with "Those on the right hand side of the plane should get a good view of the Alps" you may gather that the weather was      changing. Another of Martin Schumaker's cousins was driving the, somewhat bijou, minibus, but we arrived without capsizing.
The evening was spent digesting pork, mulched with red wine; and pussyfooting round the new bathroom trying not to break the shower doors with either the toilet (L) or the washbasin (R). Sleeping was tricky until I muffled the road with earplugs, this later proved not to be unnecessary as I muffled the road with red wine.

Day one.
Rep's orientation, usual stuff, "This is where we have the Tyrolean evening - eight euro. I love working in St Johann so why not go on the daytrip to Salzburg, or Krimml Falls, or Berchtesgarden where you can have your photo taken standing next to Hitler, 43 euros." And then he said "if you go down the river for 20 minutes you get to Kirchdorf and 40 minutes will get you to Erpfendorf where there's a lovely gorge walk."
So it was that my ears having been pricked, I set off for the gorge. After an hour I was on the outskirts of Kirchdorf, where I gave up and struck off up the hillside under the Kirchdorf chair before contouring round passing the most amazing golden fungi. Now in Austria there's always a little game to play, the sign says X 45 minutes, so you (ahem) clock your watch and try and get there in less, normally I'm still hale enough to do this, but was discomfited by the sign which said "St Johann 45 min" pointing through some gloopy woodland, which I negotiated with only one wet foot, emerging 15 minutes later next to a sign that said, "St Johann 45 min". The evening was spent  meeting the other tables, and then it was time for the rep's quiz, my first question, "Lewis, how long does it take to get to Kirchdorf?"
"About 40 minutes."
My second question,
"Why did you say 20?"
"I never said that."
Vociferous round of approbation from all who heard him say that.
"Oh! Umm do you want to do the quiz?"
The seven of us did, checking any answers that involved numbers, much ear mufflers were drunk.

Day 2.

A Gedankenzaun

A man is standing three quarters of the way up a small mountain, sweat is pouring off his grey hair, and his adrenal gland is dying of thirst, his glasses mist up on an irregular basis, and he still can't decide if this is a good or bad thing. To his right there is steep mixed woodland, to his left there is NOTHING, empty space, the void (actually about 200 metres of void), a lovely view across the valley to the Kitzbuhler Horn, an uninterrupted view, none of that boring old ground or anything, if it is interrupted it is by things with wings. I was three-quarters of the way up the Neiderkaiser, a ridge that separates St Johann from the Wildekaiser. The cloudy weather had sent me away from the Kitzbuhler alp, which of course, was now waving to me from across the valley, so I had picked out this relatively easy ridge walk, it was just that, instead of zig-zagging up the slope, the path-setters had decided it was more exciting to send it straight up the slope. To be fair the going up wasn't affecting me that badly, the tree roots that looked like slippery deathtraps weren't, it was the prospect of going down the same route - when they would be! My ascent had been up a route featuring the stages of the Cross, when I got to "Jesus falls for the third time" I sympathised. A third of the way up there was the Gimml chapel, a small cave with half a rococo chapel bolted onto the ledge in front of it, I decided the Gimml was probably a contraction of "Gott und Himmel", an epithet used a lot during the construction, I surmised, it was certainly used a lot by the hapless Germans in the Valiant. Anyway from there the slope steepened and the LHS disappeared. I eventually summited and found blessed relief in a forestry road, that added on the miles but took away the verticality, sadly this eventually took me back to the river, where it took me more than 20 minutes to get back home.

Bloody careless I call it!

In the evening I had to write a condolences letter, the Irish barmaid gave me some notepaper and a postage paid envelope (and a pint and a schnapps [that she failed to tell me cost 8 bucks]), due to the influence of acoustic baffling it proved an emotionally hard letter to write, so at this point I must have lost my presence of mind, as instead of finding a post box, I handed the envelope to the Manager asking him to make sure it went in the post.
"Sure" he said opening a drawer, "Do you want me to charge the stamp to your room?"