Glacier Hiking

If you hate mountains, rivers, waterfalls, meadows, and glaciers, then Innsbruck is not the town for you. Otherwise, it is great!

Today we woke up early and caught a bus to a small town about an hour outside Innsbruck (forget the name-something long and German). The town is at the bottom of a tall mountain (10,000 ft) with a big glacier on top of it, where you can ski all year round. Well, that is a bit of a lie since they said it was too warm to ski right now, but most of the year! We bought gondola (not the Venice type) tickets and rode all the way to the top, an ascent of about 8000 ft! The views on the way up were absolutely amazing as we ascended from subalpine forest all the way past the treeline up to snow. We trouped around in the snow for awhile and had lunch in another one of those mountaintop huts before getting cold and heading back down. Then we had a little hike to a waterfall at the foot of the mountain before heading back to Innsbruck, where we just caught our train to Bolzano, Italy - where we are now. I will not describe the glacier in any more detail since my words will not do it justice - see the pictures!

Top of Glacier

Bottom of Mountain

Here in Bolzano we are staying at a fine Four Points Sheraton hotel courtesy of Deloitte. We hope to ride bikes, hike the Dolmites (the local mountain range), and see a castle before heading off for Prague. Now we are off for a swim in our hotels indoor heated pool.