Kaltenberghutte

Helen is taking us back to the walk we had to abandon last Monday, the weather is forecast to be good until late afternoon when there is a chance of rain and thunder. We collected Helen at 9.30 and drove to St Christof where we met 2 of Helens friends, Helen (another one) and Julie, Julie had her 9 year old Son Sammy with her.

We parked up and set off up the hill, it’s quite a hike up, especially when you are trying to keep up with a 9 year old.

The obligatory team photo.

We got to the flattish bit and we found some horses and a donkey, the donkey was very much the boss, it was very cute.

This horse was a funny colour, a bit like a Dalmatian dog.

This is Helen with the donkey, the other Helen!

It had a bell round its neck, and it stood on a higher level watching the horses.

It was watching the dogs swimming in the mountain lake

We left the horses and climbed on up the hill, Helen was not quite honest about the amount of height we had to gain on this walk.

The hole on the left is an old Zinc Mine and the little building on the right is where the miner would live. The mine would be owned and operated by one person and he ran it like a little business. There are hundreds of these around the Alps and they were all shut down at the start of the 2nd World War as the men were needed for fighting.

There are lots of little mountain lakes, very cold and a little stony but that does not stop the dogs swimming.

Is it a space ship? No it’s actually an air vent for the Arlberg Tunnel which runs about 736 metres below this mountain.

The Arlberg Road Tunnel with a length of 13,976 metres is Austria's longest road tunnel. It carries the S16 Arlbergschnellstraße (German for "Arlberg Highway") under the Arlberg massif from Tyrol to Vorarlberg.

It was built between July 1974 and December 1978 and its costs amounted to 4 billion Austrian schillings (~300 million €). The tunnel is designed for 1800 vehicles per hour and equipped with 4 ventilation centres (one shaft with a height of 736 metres is the deepest in Europe), 12 vents, 43 cameras for traffic monitoring and 16 niches. In 1998 the tunnel was used by 2.6 million vehicles, where 18 % are accounting for freight transport.

In the Alps no matter how long and far you walk, you always seem to be within sight of a road, village, mountain hut, air vent or some other form of civilisation. In The Cairngorms you can walk for days and never see any form of civilisation.

Looking down to the valley floor.

We stumbled across these horses very high up in the mountains, they were all very friendly even though some of them had foals.

After a massive climb we eventually arrived at our destination, the Kaltenberghutte, a typical mountain retreat. These are so civilised, good home cooked food and beds to sleep in. There is no access here apart from walking. The supplies are brought up on a small cable car from the valley floor but it cant carry passengers.

After a really nice lunch we headed back down the way we had come up. Lots of people do hut to hut walks and stay overnight in the huts, I really fancy this.

We had walked right up to the top left of this hill – where the path disappears.

We were much faster coming down, partly because the rain started.

We stopped at the horses again, Susan gave the donkey a dog treat and it followed her for ages, not sure what would happen when we got to the car park!

We drove home and packed up our car ready for the trip tomorrow. Ben is totally knackered, poor dog can hardly walk, it reminds me of the cycling in Spain. They must have walked over 20 miles today and ran round and round running into lakes.

We’re heading out with Helen for a meal shortly.