First Wintersport Adventure - Rosskogelhütte hike

Es ist 17 Uhr, die Bloggingzeit!

Today Jim and I rode up the Gondelbahn, the brand-new gondola which is just outside our backyard. We didn't time it but we think it is a 3-5 minute walk to the Gondola. Somewhat expensive, a ticket up and back costs EU 8 per person. From the top of the Gondola, there are two T-bars that go up to the very top of the mountain, the Ranggerkoepfl. We hiked from the top of the Gondola, a place with some lodgings called Stiglreith at 1,363 meters, up to the Rosskogelhuette at 1,777 meters. It was a steady, gentle uphill all the way. We got quite warm walking up and peeled off a lot of layers. The snow up at that elevation is quite good. The skiers seemed to be having a good time and the lifts were NOT crowded! In fact, it was relatively empty, there were absolutely no lines. There is a Rodelbahn all the way down the mountain. That is a sledding road. Even old grown-ups rent cute little wooden sleds and ride down the mountain! I am looking forward to doing that. Every Tuesday and Friday night there is night skiing and night sledding under lights.

The other good news is that there are three excellent restaurant-huts up there: one at Stiglreith, one at Rosskogel, and one at Ranggerkoepfl. We ate at Rosskogel, it was authentic and delicious. So authentic that I could hardly understand a word the proprietor was saying - his accent is thick and very local. Jim had wonderful spinach dumplings, salad and beer and I had salad and mineral water (I had a late and large breakfast.) They eat a lot of dumplings here - that was evident from my perusal of the Tyrolean cookbooks last night. I hope to learn to make many different kinds. It is a good use for leftover, stale bread. They eat a lot of noodles and ravioli too, which sort of surprised me since I don't think of them as German. They call ravioli "Krapfen" and they tend to be larger than our ravioli and have various shapes and fillings.

The bad news is that I bought new winter hiking boots and developed some more of my famous blisters, so I was in pain by the time we got to Rosskogel. I need to go to a boot fitter and get pads put in around the ankles so my heels don't slide up and down. Oh well, par for the course. Maybe my brand-new X-C boots won't hurt as much, or at least won't rub in the same places.

We received our first Internet-phone call yesterday, from Warren. It works great and costs nearly nothing! Our phone number is 617-614-7030. It rings in our living room here!!! There is a six-hour time difference, so the best time to get hold of us is probably just before our dinnertime, i.e. 11 AM to noon your time (EST) or later, like 3 PM or so. We haven't got our cellphones to work yet, will fill you in on those numbers later. Those of you who might be calling us from within Europe should use the cellphone numbers.

Here are today's photos:
This is at the top of the Gondola, Stiglreith.

You can see we are not far from the Innsbruck airport!

Rosskogelhuette, where we had a restful lunch stop.