Montain roads and avalanches.

Day 2, Part I
Bad Ischl, Austria – Zell Am See, Austria

Today was about milling around the local-ish area and seeing local places. After dealing with yesterday’s long drive and its events, I could really do with something not as mind-cooking.

Bad Ischl is a small town, or a village; I’m not entirely sure which. But it’s situated in the midst of the Austrian Alps. The flat was actually on the very bottom of a mountain, and it wasn’t just a mountain you’ll usually find in Britain with a bit of grass and trees; a few sheep and horses that can be found grazing on the top and Farmer Giles herding his cattle with his collie. It was a typical Alpine mountain with a lot of rock, possibly some loose bits, a few huts dotted around its steep slopes, tall pines forming a mass of dark green making its way half way to the summit and it also had an imposing summit topped with a crucifix, which seemed to be the usual feature on many mountain tops in the area.

For today, we went to another village, which was popular due it being a typical Alpine-Austrian village next to a very picturesque lake and we thought we’d go there via a mountain road. It may have taken longer to get there, but it was a shorter route and also more scenic and a change from the monotonous and also busier Autobahn and main roads.

After buying a map of the local area that actually showed this road, we made our way up. We had no idea how this was going to go. Would it be closed? Will it be wide enough for my car? Will it b

e too steep that the car wouldn’t be able to go up it, even screaming in first? What if Farmer Hans was herding a load of cattle up the track? With all these uncertainties of what may lay ahead, we made our way cautiously upward along the twisting.

The river reminded me of when in Hallstatt and hiking in the Salzkammergut region. The Sun was shining brightly and bearing strongly down on us. The heat was tiring and intense and it didn’t help that there was hardly a breeze, making us more fatigue and parched. We all made the most of each encounter with the rivers and streams we came across, too. As they all come from glaciers and the high mountaintops, the water was freezing cold and so refreshing, and the spray and the freshness that came from them was such a saviour and such a good feeling. And the river we were driving along was just like those rivers.

As we got higher and higher, the road twisted more and were steeper and the corners became sharper. The views were becoming more spectacular, too. The valleys seemed deeper and the drop seemed near vertical. Apparently this was a bus route to the skiing centre at the top of the mountain, so if a bus could do it, I’m sure my car would be, too! And the road was busier than I thought with other traffic. It wasn’t a case of reversing back a bit into the nearest lay-by, but for such a road, I didn’t expect so many. But I guess the skiing centre had something to do with it. With the other traffic using the roads, I had to ease carefully around the sharp and blind bends that frequented the climb. More often than not, you see idiots driving on mountain roads because they think nobody else uses them, especially the case in Britain, and I guess it was best to prepare for the same thing here.

Here is a photo I took on the way up with Rob, Dai, Heather and Ruth...

After a couple of stops on the side of the road to savour the scenery all around us, we arrived at the skiing centre. The place was quite large, especially the car park. It wasn’t at the top of the mountain as we thought, but it was high enough. Unfortunately, there weren’t as many Kodak Moments as we hoped, either, but the place was still picturesque. But we didn’t stop to ski as we had to get moving, but even if we did have the time, I’d rather have taken a few photos around the place instead of falling all the time in the snow in a lame attempt to ski.

But leaving the car park seemed trivial. There was a road carrying in the direction we were headed, but one lane of the road was blocked by a barrier, however, we noticed other vehicles leaving in that direction and wet tyre marks bypassing the barrier and carrying on. We hesitated at first, but if we turned back, it would be a long and possibly unnecessary detour around the mountain. So we went on.

The further we carried on this road, the deeper the snow became. The snowploughs had no chance of clearing this road; they must have used those diggers that get used for motorway road works. As the road continued, the walls of snow grew higher and higher to about twice the height of the car. Occasionally, there were small areas dug out of the snow, but these didn’t look as if they were made for passing bays in case two vehicles encountered each other in opposite directions, but they looked more like parking bays, or junctions for another road, but they just didn’t bother to clear out that road.

The scenery became more and more spectacular, the forests were dense covered a massive area on the mountainsides. The countless impressive peaks of the snow-covered mountains broke into the sky around us. It felt as if we were isolated from the rest of the world, as there were no more cars parked in the snow, there were no chalets or huts to be seen. There was just wilderness.

The road was very, very quiet as we drove along. Earlier there was the frequent car that would pass us, but there was none to be seen. We did see warning signs telling us to be careful along the road, especially due to avalanche danger. But the closest thing we saw to an avalanche was sometimes clumps of snow would fall off the top of ‘the snow wall’ and onto the road.

We arrived at the other end of the road and came across a tollbooth, similar to the one at the beginning, but unusually, they didn’t charge per vehicle, but per person in the vehicle. The booth was closed, unlike the one we went through earlier. The barrier was closed to entry, stating that the road we were on was actually closed in danger of avalanches, even though it was peculiarly signed on the other end. Thankfully though, we could still pass the booth on our end and carried on to Zell Am See along normal, regularly used and avalanche free roads. And the following photo is what the view was like after passing the tollbooth and heading down into the valley.