Blogging
From Abroad

A rather big item on my European to do list was to ski in the Alps. Yesterday that was fulfilled at Suhleck ski area, located in the Semmering area of the eastern Austrian Alps. Given it’s proximity to Vienna, it was rather convenient. The top of the mountain was at 1.782 meters or 5.465 feet, not really very high. At the top of nearly every mountain in Austria there is a cross chained down, good Kodak moment I suppose.

We had lunch at an alpine lodge at the top, which was really neat, stocked with beer, served food, and beds if you need to sleep there. Hannes told me there is a network of the lodges at the tops of the mountains to provide this service all throughout the Austrian mountains, a really nice feature. I had my first beer with soda, called a “Radler”, it was like a sprite with beer, very refreshing with lunch. As I sat eating lunch this was my view, very nice.

To get to Stuhleck we took several trains, the one which took us to the ski area was considered a World Heritage Site. We passed many small villages nestled in the foothills and cool, old train stations. The route we took travels all the way to Graz through the Alps, Hannes says that it is an engineering masterpeice having been completed in the early 19th century. I was amazed at how smooth the train was, and then was told this was an old set of tracks, they are much smoother elsewhere. Still for me, the quality of craftsmenship on the railroad was excellent.

I was somewhat disappointed with the amount of natural snow present on the slopes. Apparently, the eastern Alps are much drier, similar to weather in Hungary (hey Becky!). At Stuhleck, they had to rely much on artificial snow. The steeper, icy slopes were hard for me on the telemark since I am learning, but on mellow slopes we were able to pause to take a photo. I know my form is not the best, I was tired.

Overall, it was a great day. We could not ask for better weather, the air was cool, not cold and there was barely any wind. This day at Stuhleck was great practice for me, in a month I will join others for a ski week to the big mountain ski area Dachstein, near Salzburg. I hope I am up to the challenge!

Bye!