The weather has been pretty incredible lately. We still have a ton of snow on the ground and it’s a crime to squander the midday sunshine indoors. When the cloud cover burns off, around noon, we head off to play outdoors for a few hours. The days are getting a little longer, but there’s a pretty good chill that starts to come in when the sun drops lower in the sky. That’s when we head back home. (Mr. Krabs says, “Get back to work!)
Thursday we skiied from Bad Mitterndorf to Heilbrunn and back. It’s flat on the way in, but if you take the extended loop like we did, you have to climb up a couple of hills. We had a good ski and covered a lot of ground but it seemed effortless like it does on a good day. This is a pretty popular route but it’s close to home so we can run out for a ski and head back to whatever we were doing before lunch without really eating up the afternoon. I’m pleased to report that I’m mastering hills – getting up them without sliding backwards and down them without planting my face (or other body part) in the snow.
Friday we drove up to the Spechtensee with the snowshoes. The snow back there is so deep that when you’re on the road, it looks like you’re right down in one of those Olympic toboggan runs. We snowshoed around the lake and across the meadow. It was gorgeous and we saw not another soul until the snow grooming machine came through to prep the track for cross coutry skiing.
Saturday we went up to the Grundlsee, about 1/2 hour drive from here. We skiied out to the Toplitzsee, a perfect little cirque of a lake that’s the center of much speculation as local legend has it that right before the end of the war, the occupying Nazis dumped their stolen fortune in to the deep blue water. We stopped at the inn on the edge of lake, stood our skis in the snow, and had coffee and an excellent slice of chocolate cake while sitting out in the sun. We then continued on to the best cross country ski I’ve had in all the years I’ve been skiing in Steiermark. The !snow was flawless, the sky was Kodakchrome blue, there were virtually no other skiiers, and the views were breathtaking. On the way home, we stopped at the market to get cheese so I could wrap up my day with the perfect post-ski meal, a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup.
Cake: it’s not just a food anymore. Now it’s a destination too!
Sunday (today) we headed up to the Gasthaus in Puergg. I had baked polenta with sheep cheese and a green salad, then we went to the trailhead. We snowshoed along a forested trail for 2.5k until we reached the village at end of the trail. Once again, we were solo, save two mountain goats who looked down on us from their perch on a seemingly vertical rock face above us. Shortly before we reached our destination, we were joined by a old farmer who told us that when he was a lad, they used to take that route to church on Sundays. It was uphill most of the way there, which, of course, means it was downhill most of the way back to the car.
I’m exhausted and oh my god, am I hungry. Whew. I could eat well, another slice of that cake at the Toplitzsee for starters.