Espresso 4 Breakfast: 2013-07-31: To the top of Kitzbueheler!

Today is the day that we're pretty sure will exhaust us all - hitting the top of the Kitzbueheler. Here's the thing - there are are many times we've said to each other "hey! we're fit! we can do this!" only to be surprised at how difficult some pretty [seemingly] "normal" things are for the natives. They just CRUISE up the hills.

So anyway, we took the gondola to the middle station and hiked the rest of the way from there. The route takes you up some incredibly beautiful (and dangerous) trails. I'll say it here so I don't have to caveat each caption: there were many places where there was about 6 inches between you and oblivion. Well, not oblivion in the classic sense of endless falling - from what I could tell, it would *seem* like endless falling, punctuated by several impacts with craggy rock cliffs on the way down. Fastest way to descend, but it has the unfortunate permanent side-effect of near 100% fatality. It was the type of trail where you didn't want to just look up at the peak too quickly - you had to brace yourself and hold on to something and then slowly raise your head to not get weird vertigo. Vertigo with no room for error most likely means you'll be testing gravity at 9.8 m/s^2.

So here are some pictures of our wonderful gondola ride:

More Adventurous.

Laughs [nervously] in the face of Death.

You have NO IDEA how much I would love to enter this. I couldn't translate all of it, but I think it had to do with Austrian Mountain Man Grappling, where the winner got to throw the defeated off of the cliff. But it might have just been winning a medal - hard to tell. Sincerely saddened that we'll be long gone by the time the reindeer games are in full swing.

They still have no idea that Amy and I are planning on doing this tomorrow with them. HA! We'll see how brave they are then! (spoiler alert: they are very brave - paragliding is *nothing* to them now. They had a great time, but due to their youth/invulnerability, the ride down was just so enjoyable, not necessarily scary. Bungee jumping or skydiving might get them whooping though?

I don't know what this sign says, but it made Amy so nervous she couldn't really read it all - this was at the beginning of the Kitzbueheler Horn Panorama Route, and it says [essentially] "Hike at your own risk, if you are not careful, you actually might die." Another spoiler alert: we didn't (thankfully!)


Oh how cute, we thought we were really high up by this point. Turns out we weren't.

So here come a metric-crap-ton of pictures. Prepare your senses - you may want to occasionally cleanse your visual palette by watching something decidedly and objectively UNbeautiful. Like Jersey Shore. Or just static (a more productive use of your time than Jersey Shore). The pictures really don't do it justice - I hate to sound like those people that are constantly saying "the movie wasn't NEARLY as good as the book" (debatable in many instances), but in this case it's true. If you have the chance to visit Skt. Johann just DO IT.

One of the most adorable selfies by one of the most adorable selfs.

Yes, this is hard work.

Do you see these two adorable selfs?

I think I was going to "check something out" with Ella - on a cliff. Amy and Maya decided that they were close enough to see :)

Holy shit, that's beautiful.

We've gone a long way, but still have a LONG way to go to the top. Then we wrap around the other side of the peak and go downhill most of the way.

Having fun yet?

There were real clouds in attendance that day.

The cable is so that you don't get blown off the side of the mountain in wind. The camera didn't capture the awesome 200m down...

Getting higher!

Thankful for that little keyhole.

Beautiful downhill. Can't imagine this place in the winter.

This is on the other side of the mountain - unsurprisingly, down is far more difficult.

Heidi of the hills!

There were crevasses down the mountain that had an abundance of mountain wildflowers growing, some of which only grow here.

DEM SWITCHBACKS

Just over the ledge, there was this super-cool cloud action whirling up and curling away. I spotted three angels too!

My mountain goats.

So, there was one point on the trail where we were like "what kind of scat is that?" and it wasn't until about 5 minutes down the trail that we noticed there were 3 white mountain goats hanging on to the side of the cliff about 30 feet above us (probably laughing).

Another thing that I didn't really do a good job capturing with the camera is just how much electrical fencing there is here. It's *everywhere*. Sometimes it's not that easy to avoid, given the sparse room afforded to the hiking trail. And in case you were wondering, it hurts. Don't worry, I didn't pee on it or anything, but we came across another family and the mother had just been shocked going through the barrier. She had to stop there and pause for about 10 seconds with a grimace on her face before it passed. Be careful out there kids!

Obligatory [awesome] gun show at the peak.

We made it! Cheated Death again.

After we came down, Amy and Ella headed to the town where there was a big party (with cheerleaders, jazz singers, ballet dancers in shop windows, and a polka band!