Today, we had the most difficult hike of our entire trip (I can say that authoritatively, because in real time, it's only 8 hours until we leave Europe!).
"Difficult" is not a Bad Thing - quite the contrary! It was incredible, rewarding, exhausting, and really, really hard. We were all so thirsty and tired by the time we got to the station, we must have looked like loping blonde zombies. But as we got closer to the gondola station, Ella had a surge of energy and beat us all to the top. When she arrived (wearing just a sports-bra, shorts, and copious amounts of sweat) she walked into the resort/restaurant and said in German "leitungswasser bitte? My parents will come with money." They got her a huge glass of water (which she chugged on the spot). At which point they got her another (which she also chugged on the spot).
But I am getting ahead of myself.
The morning started out so simple - not necessarily *flat*, but nothing too bad. We hiked next to a river for a while, and the landscape reminded us a lot of Minnesota (hilly woods).
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| There are some of those woods I was telling you about! |
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| Amy in her true element. |
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| Having a Zen moment. |
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| This picture makes me so happy. |
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| Just look at them playing in the water! I love this. |
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| This was a small church on the way up the trail. It was dedicated to a couple of different people (who had somewhat unfortunate endings to their journeys on the mountain). |
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| Little bit of a panorama fail, but still beautiful. |
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| This was up the road from the "lake" (which, coming from MN, was more like a smallish pond). SUPER HOT, super-steep. Hard to stay out of the sun on this section of the hike. |
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| Gorgeous, but I hate that you can't see that this is about a 20% grade we're walking up. In fact, much of the day is almost straight uphill (most of it not on a gravel road like this). |
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| Not posed, this is genuine "holy crap how is this so hard?" |
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| This was nearer the end when Ella zoomed ahead of me (and Amy and Maya). |
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| Check out the view! |
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| Yes, that's snow. In August, and it's hotter than hell outside. |
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| Finishing a liter of bottled water (she was sloshy afterwards, since she had a couple big ones before the rest of us got there). |
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| Check out the fraulein with her frischist berg milch! It really is the best. |
So when we got to the top (and I looked like Death, but sweatier), I immediately went to buy 4 of the liters of COLD bottled water. I didn't notice that they were closing the restaurant soon, so when Amy and Maya got there, everyone was super-nice and helped us get food, etc., before they closed.
After that, we took the gondola (a BIG one) up to the Valluga station where the glaciers are. Let's just say that Amy has done a LOT of things on this trip that are outside her comfort zone - this gondola was one of those things - we're so proud of her :)
An interesting point is that we *almost* missed the last gondola of the day, what with all of our gallivanting around the mountain and then recycling massive quantities of dihydrogen oxide through our bodies. But we got the last one up, and the last one down. We had about 10 mins to check out the glacier and view (windy, and thankfully a bit chillier) before the last ride of the night headed down the mountain.
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| You can take the girl out of Minnesota, but evidently not the Minnesota out of the girl :) |
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| So brave! The views were really spectacular. This one was my favorite. |
When we finally made it down the mountain (terra firma!), we chilled out a bit in our rooms, I'm sure I passed out for an hour, and regrouped to go watch the criterium. St. Anton is host to 2 stages of a big race in Austria. Today's stage is a criterium - cool course and a couple of difficult turns, but nothing like the massive hill in the Stillwater stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix.
It was really fun to head to the registration area and lust for all of the sweet bikes, check out the scene, etc.
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| Have I mentioned how much Austrians and Germans LOVE signs like this? |
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| This is what is known as a "metric-shit-ton of trails". If you can't find something you like here, you aren't trying hard enough. |
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| I don't know what "Aufsteiger" means, but I'm pretty sure I would be in the Startblock 5 "Fett-sack". |
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| I got some kewl pictures of fast people. |
Since everyone was tired, and we saw a lot of the criterium, Amy and the girls were sweeties and offered to let me stay a bit longer so I could see the finish/take more pics. We separated, I took more pics, and then the thunder started. Oh man, the rain came down REALLY hard, and didn't stop. The race was sweet - they finished it in a complete downpour, I was soaked, and then tried to head up the hill to our place, thinking they would be worried by now.
I got to about the foot of the hill and Maya yelled from a pizza place "DAD!". We ordered Antonio's pizza that night (walked it back) and the next night (delivery guy says "Rico! You are a super-star! Give my regards to Christopher (one of the owners)".
Great day, ending the day incredibly tired and incredibly happy!
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