My walk down from the Kliene Scheidigg to Grindelwald this afternoon was lovely until it got dark. Then it was scary and I couldn`t see the ground in front of me because it was all a uniform white glow. But I finally made it by following these large glowing purple and orange-painted sticks stuck in the snow every few hundred meters. It was like a Tim Burton version of the Camino: Down a steep mountain in the dark on a slippery, twisting surface...alone.
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| At the Jungfrau Joch, highest point people who were not mountaineers like Ueli Steck were allowed to go |
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| The Eiger North Face. Still a long way to go and dark is looming! |
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| Eiger routes taken by various crazy people over the centuries. |
While walking - alone in the dark - I finally remembered the title of that book by Joe Simpson: The Beckoning Silence. It was actually one of the books that inspired me to want to see the Eiger and this whole historic Jungfrau area. Rob Peters made me realize it was actually possible to get here and not just a pipe dream. Now that I`m here, it`s beautiful but my Doc Martens are soaked and my jeans smell like sheep shit from tobogganing down the last bit past these farm houses. But it was worth it to stand there and see the famous North Face we`ve all read about and seen films about.
Okay, I wrote that on Thursday and am now in Innsbruck about to leave the beautiful Tirolean alps tomorrow to get to Salzburg for this music workshop which is the main reason I'm on these European wanderings. Travelling alone is starting to suck. But I met a bunch of nice skiiers in the Youth Hosel kitchen this evening so things are going a lot better.
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| Tyrolean alps above Innsbruck |
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| Yep, that's a mountain. Italy's behind it somewheres. |
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| Snowboarders from Pittsburgh, PA, of all places. |
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| Summit shot |
Internet is expensive and facebook is often restricted so those of you facebooking me, please don't. Just email me. I can't even open the facebook emails. A certain friend wasn't kidding when he said the Swiss were the inventors of anal-retentiveness: the second I went over my 20 min limit the other day while blogging, I got cut off and forbidden from re-accessing until the next day. Then I couldn't get anyone in Austria to change my Swiss Francs until this evening. Argh. But saw a lot of museums today: the Hapsburg Imperial Palace, the Alpine Club exhibit, and some old Hapsburg medieval castle on the city outskirts. Also took a ski tram to the top of a mountain and took a winter hike. Cold and windy. But an amazing view of mountains.
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| Hapsburg summer palace. Desperately needs a ton of swishy ball gowns, clinking wine glasses, and some Strauss waltzes. |
Out of time, got to run.
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