May 11th. 2012.

We got up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, and picked up our packed breakfasts and were on our way to the Alps. Beautiful sunny day, we could not wait to see it.

This Google map shows our trip. It took us about 5 and a half hours to get to Hallstatt.

Based on the weather forecast Dr. Anna had on her -phone, today was the last nice day for a while. And this is supposedly was our time in the Alps. This  is why we got up so early and drove without stopping. We were at the base station of the cable car to Krippenstein by 12:30 p.m.

Krippenstein is the highest peak of the Northern Limestone Alps.

“Austria’s Northern Alps formed together with the Carpathians, the Southern Alps and the Northern Dinarids an up to 500 km wide and up to 700 km long shelf strip at the western Tethys. Tethys is the huge Mesozoic Ocean. Along this as well as other parts of the Tethyan passive margin belts of marine sedimentation were arranged in a characteristic shore parallel fashion. The first and near shore zone was the Keuper-belt as deposition site of hypersaline or extreme shallow marine siliciclastics. Seaward followed broad Dachstein carbonate platforms of flanked by reefs towards open shelf basins. The Dachstein reefs produced large masses of skeletal and non-skeletal carbonate detritus which were deposited mostly along the platform margins and on the attached basin floors. Further offshore only a small amount of periplatform mud reached as reduced sediment supply the pelagic Hallstatt facies belt. The latter now is generally regarded as evidence for the contiguity of an ocean and is used as tool for delineating the Gondwanian margin towards the deep sea of Tethys. “

We took the cable car and was not really ready for the beautiful weather and the amazing views that was waiting for us up there.

They have changed the cable car to a newer safer, bigger version so we were not scared!

Happy jumping

Us at the "5 fingers" This is the newest outlook of this area.  This is the place from where a lot of parasailors are taking off.

Good beer, God time, Good company, Beautiful weather and stunning view.

When we got back to the cable car, Dr. Anna decided that we were going to hike down. It should have been a nice delightful hike in normal condition, but this year was an exception, and we were not aware of it. The guy at the station told us the road was ok. However, it definitely was not Ok. The upper part of the path was mostly under snow so the walking path was hidden under 15 feet of snow. We had the hardest time to try to get down without too much damage. It was one challenging hike.

We were trying to go around the snow, but sometimes it was impossible.

SURVIVORS

From Allisom Major's journal

Words and pictures could not possibly describe the magnitude of how breathtaking the Alps are. The sky was scattered  with  perfect fluffy white clouds littered with parasailors.. We saw three of them jump; I’m going to go back and do it one day, I swear.

We ended up decided to hike down a trail from the top and found that a large portion of it was covered in snow from a snow slide. We had to carry on because going back was not an option by that point. It was absolutely the most adventurous thing I’ve done with my life, as silly as that sounds. We were digging our feet in the snow on the side of the top of the Alps off of any sort of path, you can’t get much better than that. There is nothing better than walking and climbing over snow and rocks in Austria, hands down. I swear I’ve dreamed of this place before, it’s like fairy tale. All sorts of liken and moss and giant boulders and trees and waterfalls. I could go on and say “and” over and over and still wouldn’t be able to get magnify the situation to what it really was. I was like a child in a fairy tale. There were beautiful glacial flowers, dolomite everywhere (what the Alps are composed of: Dolomite and Limestone). I’d live in Austria in a heartbeat. Although, I’d have to bring all the people and animals I love back with

We spent the nights in a charming bad and breakfast in Obertraum. Right next to the hotel there was a pizza restaurant with good food and a bowling alley

From Allison Major's journal

"

Well, I forgot to mention all the fun we had just by having down time at the “hotel” witch was more like the most perfect penthouse apartment in Austria. We all went to eat pizza at this awesome pizzeria right next door to where we were staying. I ended up getting a wee bit tipsy by drinking an amazingly tasty red wine at dinner. John, Paige, Megan and I went to the back of the pizzeria where there was a two lane off sort of bowling alley. We played with these tiny balls and knocked over pins that were attached to strings. We played in the name of The Big Labowsk and drank beer and wine.

            We went back to the hotel for more drinks and such and ended up pushing the dining room table and chairs to the side and learned some zumba moves from Whitney who happens to be an avid zumba participant, ha. Everyone went out on the balcony which looked out on the surrounding Alps. We all took shots and Paige, Kathy and me ended up singing Regina Spector songs at the top of our lungs into the night. Turn out that the owners of the hotel we were staying at live on the mountain side and could hear us all the way from their home. The mountains surrounding us leaving us in a bowl which I suppose caused us to echo. I’m sure all of the inhabitants aren’t too fond of silly American girls now. We were just singing and laughing and appreciating where we were. So far I’d have to say that this was the best night in Austria, hands down."