How does the saying go? Make hay while the sun shines? Well at the moment I’m very happy to keep climbing while the sun shines, and shining is exactly what it’s doing in Innsbruck right now, day after day. Traditionally November in Europe should be a pretty dreary, fairly miserable month; arguably the worst month of the year. But this year seems to be an exception (well certainly in Innsbruck!) and I am absolutely loving it. With a perfect forecast for the weekend we made the bold decision to head up in to the Karwendel National Park, just outside of Innsbruck, take on a 2 day via feratta, and bivvy (yes, sleep outside!) up in the mountains – on 31st October! Bags packed we headed off in the sunshine, excited about yet another new place to explore, and it didn’t disappoint.
Waking up outside at 2000m, watching the sun creep over the mountains on 1st November was certainly a first, and felt pretty cool. The views were spectacular, the sunrise and sunset stunning, and over 2 full days we saw perhaps only 15 other people. There is nothing like being out in the mountains, especially when it’s wild and virtually empty. It’s a perfect escape from daily life, somewhere you can feel completely free and happy. Plus, a full day out leaves you tired, content and fully ready for a big feed in the evening; very satisfying!
The views down to Hall in Tirol belowThe wire ‘bridge’ on day one. Just 30 minutes before this we watched someone being helicoptered off after losing her nerve on the bridgeOne of the remarkable ‘stuck blocks’ that the route traversesSunset from our privileged view point at 2000mPerfectLooking back at the ‘klein’ peak en route to the ‘grosse’! It’s big, wild country out there, apparently the largest uninhabited area in the Alps.My first sighting of wild animals since arriving in Austria!It was a long old descent and our legs were certainly feeling it by the time we got to the bottom. But of course another beautiful sunset made it all worthwhile…
This week brought yet more Autumn sunshine, and a bank holiday! We used it wisely and headed across to Achensee, a beautiful lake around 30minutes drive from Innsbruck. A ride up the Rofan-seilbahn cable car rewarded us with these views, and one of the best and most spectacular via ferrata routes we’ve done yet. Covering 5 peaks and traversing a truly stunning ridge line, it’s a day I would thoroughly recommend and will most certainly be back to do again!
The view across towards the DolomitesLunching with the mountain birds…And feeding them!The final summitHeading down for a beer in the sun. What a beautiful way to end the day.
Innsbruck is a wonderful place. Where else in the world do you have stunning mountains and all the nature you could wish for, within spitting distance of a city with all the amenities a person could ever need?
The seasons are changing fast here, the bright orange and yellows are out in force and the colder weather is creeping in, which means Winter is coming…! But not quite yet. Last week we managed both a via ferratta (climbing rock faces using fixed metal railings) and a ski tour within a couple of days. Perfect!
Heading up the wallIn the cave halfway up, with Kematen, one of Innsbruck’s neighbouring villages belowQuite an impressive wall!No-one around, bliss!Stunning ice formations at the topA well beaten path and spectacular sceneryPowder in October??! Who’d have thought?!
Having recently moved to Innsbruck, Austria, it seemed almost rude not to make the 2 hour drive to Munich for our very first Oktoberfest. It’s one of those mythical events that you always hear about and would love to go to, but never quite get round to organising. Well not anymore.
Lederhosen, dirndls, steins and checked shirts as far as the eye can see, Oktoberfest is nuts. It’s one of the busiest, craziest and most fun places I’ve ever been and I think a right of passage for anyone within reaching distance of Munich. If you want the finest possible example of national pride, then look no further. Stereotypes ahoy, Oktoberfest is Germany at its finest. The sea of traditional outfits is enough to make anyone smile, but what really struck me is how much fun people were having. Sure, litres of beer tends to alter anyone’s mood, but I’ve lived long enough to see how consuming excessive amounts of alcohol can have a rather more adverse effect on people. At Oktoberfest, EVERYONE is happy. People as far as the eye can see are squeezed in like sardines and space is at an absolute premium, but no-one cares, they are all there to have fun. I lost count of how many “PROUST”s we did with our new found friends, smashing our litre steins together in the middle of the table, but of the tens of thousands of people there, we didn’t hear one angry voice or witness even a hint of violence; such a refreshing change from your average booze-fuelled night out in a city.
Oktoberfest is simple fun done well. I couldn’t recommend it more highly if you’re a fan of laughing, smiling, having fun and generally enjoying your life.
The ‘Paulaner’ tentOn the way inSo many lederhosen…National pride at its bestFun for all the family!Be under no illusions that lunch will be gourmet. Chicken means chicken (and nothing else!)The kitchen in one of the tents – expecting to sell a few chickens??!PROUST!!
The title says it all really! It seems winter comes early in Innsbruck as the Stubai Gletscher guarantees skiing from October to June. A couple of days of heavy rain last week meant a good layer of snow up high so the lifties were kind enough to get it open a week early. Exploring a new area is always great fun, especially with very few people, fantastic snow and glorious sunshine!
We even found a little peak to scramble up, our first Austrian peak! Looking out over the Dolomites, with snowy peaks as far as the eye could see, I must admit I was feeling pretty happy about our move. The novelty of starting the ski season in September certainly helps! We finished off the day with tired legs and a Weissbier in the sunshine, excited about the winter to come…
A stunning panoramaLooking across to the Italian DolomitesIncredible cloud inversion, luckily we were above it!So much to explore!First Austrian peak!We even found some powder!
I’ve written about this before, but it’s a subject I think about a lot. Whether through choice or necessity, the vast majority of people work either very hard, or an enormous amount, and I would never criticise anyone for the lifestyle choices they make. Everyone is different and everyone has their reasons for the decisions they make. Right from an early age I knew that a standard lifestyle was never going to be for me. The thought of working in an office terrified me and I always leant towards seasons abroad or travelling.
I spent the summer between finishing school and starting university in France, which set the standard for the next 3 years. I think once you’ve had the taste of an outdoor, slightly alternative lifestyle, it’s hard to ever imagine going back to a ‘normal 9-5 job’. I found out that what made me happiest was being outdoors and being barefoot. Whether that was in the mountains or on the beach didn’t matter, it was the fresh air and the outdoors that I loved. I discovered that I was a simple person who didn’t need much, as long as I had the outdoors, I didn’t feel trapped, I was happy.
And I’ve never really looked back, I found ways to make it work in France, and carved out a pretty good life for myself as a teacher in Switzerland. I’m happy to work hard, and when I put my mind to it I think I do a damn good job, but leaving home at 6am every morning, sitting in a traffic jam and driving for over an hour each way just to get to work, wore me in to the ground. Wrong or right, I knew that I wasn’t happy anymore, so after a few years of this I knew I had a choice, accept it or change it. Many people do this for their whole working lives, and I admire them for it, it shows a lot more commitment and dedication than I will ever have, but I knew it wasn’t for me and despite how much I enjoyed my job, I knew this lifestyle was never going to make me happy.
So I chose to change it. Me and my boyfriend made the rather life changing decision to hand in our notices and move to Austria. We knew we wanted to stay in the mountains, but we needed something more, something different. I’ve realised that there are 2 types of people, those who seek the path of least resistance, and those who constantly seek something more challenging. Neither is to be criticised nor celebrated, as both are perfectly acceptable life choices, indeed I often envy those who choose to keep things simple, life is complicated enough without adding in extra issues like language barriers and trying to get your head around an entirely new country’s social system. But I’ve discovered that it’s those extra barriers that keep me going. As much as it’s a very tempting prospect on paper, I’ve had to admit to myself that I don’t want to settle for the easy path. An cruisey job which pays well sounds like the dream, but I thrive on new challenges, on throwing myself in at the deep end and on feeling a bit terrified.
Quitting your job on a whim and moving to another country is never going to be the best decision financially, but you need to decide how much money you really need and what is going to make you happy. My commute has gone from waking up before dawn and a 2 hour round trip in a car, to a 10 minute cycle along a river and flexible working hours. I’m so much happier and I’m so glad we made the decision we did. You only get one shot at life and sometimes you have to stick your neck out and take a risk. If it works, brilliant, and if it doesn’t, well at least now you know!
Welcome to Innsbruck, Austria, where time and lifestyle take precedent over money…
Apologies for the brief hiatus, but the last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic; myself and my boyfriend completely shifting our lives from the French Alps to the Austrian ones, and all the admin and stress that goes hand in hand with it. From furniture arriving to getting the internet connected, and from starting new jobs and learning a new language to most importantly of all, exploring our new home, there hasn’t been a lot of down time.
There will be a lot more to come on Austria, and the reasons for the move, but for now my first impressions of Innsbruck have been rather good:
The all important Germanic beer at lunchtime outside a mountain hut. As a general rule I don’t even like beer, but Weissbier is different…Just one of hundreds of secret, deserted and beautiful forest paths the mountains of Innsbruck have to offerA local Flea Market; fascinating! It’s incredible to see the junk people are selling. But I did manage to get myself a superb town bike at a bargain rate!
With only a couple of days to go until I leave Chamonix for good, it seemed only right to do some of the tourist things that I’ve never got round to doing in my almost 9 years here, plus some of the old favourites that I will never get tired of. August is by far the busiest time of year in Chamonix, with wall to wall people lining the already crowded pedestrian streets and a permanent line of cars trying to park in the town centre. These last 2 weeks of the summer are especially busy with the world famous ultra marathon ‘Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc’ looming; there are runners literally everywhere and the town is absolutely at capacity, but every now and again you just have to brave the crowds and even embrace the overwhelming busy-ness of it, because people come here for a reason. It’s amazing! Some of my highlights over the last couple of weeks:
The endlessly spectacular Aiguille de Midi:
If you ever get bored of the views from the top of here, there’s something wrong with you…
View down the famous arête and across to Switzerland from the top of the Aiguille de MidiLooking down the Chamonix valley towards Les Houches across the Bossons GlacierMajestic Mont Blanc with climbers in the foreground just finishing the Cosmiques Arête
The tramway du Mont Blanc and hiking up to the Tête Rousse mountain hut This is the start of the classic route up to Mont Blanc and a path well travelled by many thousands of people. A beautiful day out:
The Glacier de Bionassay on the way up to the Tête Rousse hutThe stunning Tramway du Mont Blanc, over 100 years old, how on earth did they build it in 1907??!So many ibex en route, we lost count
The Lac D’Emosson funicular
An incredible 3 part ride from the tiny Swiss town of Le Châtelard up to the Emosson dam and reservoir. Two incredibly steep funicular railway rides with a beautifully quaint and spectacular open air train ride in between. Absolutely worth a visit.
One of the 2 incredible funicular railwaysSetting off on the tiny tourist trainRounding the corner to catch our first sight of the Emosson dam
It’s a commonly discussed fact amongst Brits that ‘70% of Americans don’t even have a passport’. Whether or not this is factually correct nobody is really sure, but it’s one of those ‘facts’ that everybody seems to know, most likely because living in Europe, the thought of not owning a passport is utterly ridiculous.
2 months ago I think I would probably have agreed, how could anybody live without owning a passport? Flying is so commonplace for us Brits, and with our country being so small, to fly pretty much anywhere means to leave the country. Our passports are somewhere close by at all times. For many years I lived in France and worked in Switzerland, so crossed the border twice a day without giving it a second thought. But I must admit that spending some time travelling around the States has made me view the no passport issue in a completely different light.
The USA literally has everything you could ever need with regards to landscape, climate and sports. It has coastlines and beaches, mountains, deserts, lakes, snow and sun; meaning that every sport from skiing to surfing is possible somewhere in the States. Within Europe, if you wish to ski, you need to fly to a country which has mountains and snow, if you want a beach holiday, countries such as Spain or Greece are an obvious choice. People in Europe take it for granted that they can jump on a plane and in less than 2 hours be in a completely different climate, scenery, culture and language. But what they forget is that the entire continent of Europe could fit neatly in to the outline of the USA with an enormous amount of room to spare. The distance from one side of Montana to the other is approximately 560 miles. As a comparison, if you were to start in Milan, Italy, and drive north east for roughly the same distance, you would cross Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Germany, finally ending your journey in Prague, deep in the heart of the Czech Republic. That’s 5 European countries versus not even leaving one of America’s 50 states.
Many Europeans would consider themselves well travelled, worldly people, after all, they may visit 2 or 3 different countries each year. Yet although it would be an impossible statistic to calculate, I would be very interested to know the percentage of Europeans who have never left Europe. I’d guess the vast majority. Europe contains approximately 50 countries (debatable due to questions such as whether to class the UK as one country or 4 separate ones), the USA contains 50 states. I would hazard that most Europeans rarely leave Europe, most Americans never leave America. It’s really not that different. Europe is made up of countries, the USA of states. It’s a big expense and a long journey to leave Europe and travel to Australasia, Asia, Africa or America, so we tend to stay within the confines of the continent. This is presumably no different for Americans. If you live in Texas and want a ski holiday, why fly to France when you have Colorado just a short flight away?
Being in the States also brought it home to me just how unique the European Union is. I completely take it for granted that despite being British, I’ve lived in France for the last 9 years, worked in Switzerland for the past 4, and am about to move to Austria. No visas needed, no green cards and no need to make a special application. You can move around freely within all the countries in the EU, working and living. In no other place in the World does this happen, and we are so very fortunate that we have this available to us.
Put in perspective it becomes a lot more clear why so many Americans would choose to stay within the States. Europeans must simply count themselves lucky that they have such a diversity of cultures at their doorstep and the freedom to move around amongst them, and cut their American friends a bit of slack!
I’m reading a fascinating book at the minute, Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow, by Maria Coffey. The former girlfriend of a mountaineer who died on Everest in 1982, it’s about climbing and mountaineering, but not your average mountain story. She’s looking at the other side of this addictive passion, why people choose to take such risks, and more importantly, what effect these risks have on those they leave at home. She recounts stories of brave heroes, incredible feats and those who simply cannot walk away from the challenges no matter what the consequences. Yesterday I read about a truly remarkable story, one which I find difficult to believe that it actually happened. Here it is in her words:
Nanga Parbat. Its summit guarded by the Rupal Face, the biggest mountain wall in the world. A murderous wall: sheer, beset by storms and avalanches. Four Japanese men are attempting it. They enter a long chute called Merkl Gully. A storm breaks. The men do not return. At base camp the rest of their team wait … and wait … Before abandoning the mountain they climb the fixed ropes to 22,000 feet and leave a duffel bag filled with equipment, food and shelter. A gesture beyond hope; an offering to the dead.
Some years later, four North American men attempt the same mountain, by the same face. They are in Merkl Gully, 1,200 feet from the summit. One man is suffering from altitude sickness. A storm breaks. They retreat. Spindrift avalanches pour over them in waves. One, far bigger than the rest, sweeps them off the face. Their rope holds by a single ice screw.
Dangling in panic from the mountain, choked by rushing snow, they expect the screw to fail at any moment, and death to follow. When the avalanche ceases, the sick man’s face points upwards, his eyelids frozen shut. ‘I was going to unclip,’ he tells his friends, ‘and get it over with.’
Hour after hour, they fight their way down. Around ten at night, they emerge from Merkl Gully and reach a protective overhang. Two of the men remove the ropes from the final section of the gully. ‘I’m letting go of the ropes,’ shouts the man at the top. The wind blows away some of his words. His friend misunderstands. He hears a command. He obeys it. ‘Okay, I let go,’ he shouts back. Their ropes – their umbilical cords to the mountain, to life – sail away through space.
They have two choices. To stay where they are and freeze to death. Or to attempt the impossible – descending the Rupal Face without ropes.
Morning. Four specks cling to a mountain by a few slivers of steel – crampons and ice axes. No safety net. A single slip, and they fall 10,000 feet. Chances of survival: negligible. Then they see it … a duffel bag, clipped to the wall. Sunbleached. Tattered. Emblazoned with Japanese writing. They cut it open. Sixty pitons spill out. A dozen ice screws. Chocolate bars. A tent. A stove. Two new fifty-metre ropes. An offering from the dead.
A fascinating insight in to the dark side of extreme adventure…
Sharon Wray Writing 