At the Grossglockner Glacier

Wednesday 16 August 2000. We have reached the highest point that our coach can get in the High Alpine Pass. It's minus four degrees centigrade, but strangely it doesn't feel all that cold. We went out in T-shirts and were comfortable enough without having to put on the jackets that we carried just in case.

We had hoped to catch a glimpse of edelweiss, but it was too early in the season. Up we climbed, past the final and highest car park and, leaning over the railings, we saw the glacier below us.

There was even a funicular that you could ride to take you down to the glacier surface. We opted to stay up on the road though, we weren't wearing suitable footwear for prancing about on ice.

Glaciers flow like water. Just very, very slowly. And whilst they are doing that, over the years they break off and pick up lots of tiny bits of rock and end up looking more muddy than ice. Just the very top of the glacier was approaching white.

It looked like tunnels had been bored into the side of the glacier so that you could go inside it to get a feel for the chill of the place...

I had brought a telephoto lens for the camera These were the days where I was experimenting with digital which was only in its infancy and today was important enough for me to have my SLR film camera with me. I could see that down in the cracks in the glacier the ice shone with that wonderful turquoise colour.

Having gone down the funicular, people are now climbing up a series of around 30 steps to reach the edge of the glacier. One or two from our party made it down.

We carried on walking up the road until it petered out in a cluster of buildings, bars, shops and restaurants.

We found a souvenir shop! Yodelling teddy bear anyone? Miss Franny? She turns quickly with a guilty look. Have you been sniffing the Schnapps bottles again Miss Franny?

I simply can't make up my mind which of these Tyrolean hats suit me the best... We are 7,500 feet above the level of our home. It is minus four degrees centigrade. We are dressed in T-shirts with bare arms. We buy ice cream...

Outside a helicopter is buzzing to and fro across the mountainside, the crew scanning the larger crevices on the off chance someone might have fallen down one. Actually that would be extremely scary - some of those crevices are very deep! It's time to return to the coach before a crevice comes for me...

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A Day in the Mountains

Wednesday 16 August 2000. If you have read the previous article you will know we are on a coach holiday in Austria and that yesterday the coach was struggling to get up hills. Our drivers, John and Keith had stayed up late into the early hours waiting for a DAF mechanic to give the fuel feed lines a once over.

Not only that, but they took it for a long drive up and down hills to make sure it was behaving. So we all got onboard this morning excited to be going high up into the Alps for a look at the Grossglockner glacier.

With many houses in Austria being built of wood or at least framed in wood, there are timber yards galore here. Wood is a big industry.

We started to climb and waved to a group of men cutting the grass on an extremely steep slope. This was being done with scythes, the old way. One or two waved back. A few minutes later the coach started slowing and Keith had to start going down through the gears. It made no difference. The coach was not going to get up some of the steep hills in front of us.

This must have been a nightmare for the drivers but they handled it very well. First a suitable place had to be found to turn the coach around without having to do a 261-point u-turn on a narrow steep road with a long drop to one side! Then we retraced our route back down, waving again to the grass cutters, at least one of whom looked a bit bemused as he waved back. We got to the DAF agent, whose mechanic had seen the coach last night and we would have to wait for a replacement coach.

Keith warned us that the replacement coach would come with its own driver but that he would go with us whilst John waited with our coach, which would be being repaired during the day. The Austrian driver had been dropping the oil on another coach and was worried that he was not in uniform. Once he turned up though, the ladies on the coach started pumping oestrogen all over the place as a tall, blonde muscular young man turned up in shorts...

Fran took her rucksack from the overhead rack, ready to move to the new coach. A bread roll, taken from the breakfast table as per Keith's instructions of last night, bounced down the aisle of the coach to shrieks of laughter from everyone who hadn't heard Keith ask us to bring it. "They've nicked the bread for their dinner!" came a gleeful yell, "are you hungry?!?"

By lunchtime we were on our way again and had reached a town called Heiligenblut. The name of the village means "Holy blood" and it was to here that a phial of blood from Jesus's body on the cross was brought. Gallons of this along with several forests'-worth of splinters from the cross were peddled across the world during the first 1000 years after Christ's crucifixion. In terms of the time lapse between the later findings, it's the same as someone today offering to sell you the real string from Robin Hood's bow (honest Guv...)

We had our lunch in this cafe. Pommes frites - chips or fries depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on! (Oh... and tomato ketchup naturally!) I hadn't a clue how to pronounce this - which was the only thing on the menu I recognised. I said the French "pom freet" upon which a chap eyeing us from the next table suddenly burst out laughing and then choked... "Pommus frittess!" the waitress said sternly. The choking diner looked sheepish and turned back to his own dinner. Whilst we enjoy our dinner, back at the DAF garage John the driver has found himself locked in the garage after the staff went for lunch without telling him...

There was time to look in a couple of shops. I've never been a big beer drinker, but these steins looked very impressive!

Keith explains to the women that no... Chris the Austrian driver can't spend the rest of the week with us...

We leave Heiligenblut and start to climb into the Alps. The road, to say the least, is spectacular! In the lower regions the scenery is full of superb views overlooking villages, chalets and churches.

Chris's coach has a TV screen showing the first satellite navigation system that most of us have ever seen. It's fascinating watching it. the map was stationary and the marker depicting the coach moved up from bottom to the top of the screen. It was uncanny how many times the top of the screen coincided with approaching the top of a steep climb where all that could be seen ahead through the window was sky. Then the top was reached, a further bit of road came into view, and the display reset with the next segment of map and the coach marker at the bottom of the screen!

Once the coach reached the higher ground, hairpin bends and breathtaking drops were the order of the day. We'll have a closer look at those going down. Then eventually the coach turned into a turning and stopped. We have reached the glacier. Well, shall we say that we have reached as far up as the coach can go. Now there is a climb, starting with a hundred or so steps up from the car park! The road is so steep that even walking a little way along from where the coach turned off the road, we are now way above the car park level. Now what did we bring that bread roll for?

Keith at last told us the reason for the bread rolls... Cue for more hilarity in the coach as the other passengers realised we had not snaffled our breakfast rolls to eat in case we got cut off by snow... The Austrian marmot is a great deal bigger than the praire marmots or praire dogs that I had seen before (in zoos - I'm not that well travelled!) They were doing quite nicely out of the crowds at the glacier, obviously having quite a liking for a good "butty" as we would say in the north of England! So much so that there wasn't really much need for me to throw them any more!

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The High Alpine Road to Grossglockner

Wednesday 19 August 2003. We are on a coach, heading for the Grossglockner glacier.

This is the morning coffee stop, already high up in the mountains, but without a great deal of snow...

Mum has recovered from her bit of sunstroke and is carrying a cardigan today, though she says it's too hot to put on.

The view opposite the roadside cafe. Tumbling waterfalls. The locals say all the snow has melted, leaving only the permafrost ice on the high peaks.

Fran and I have been to the glacier before and we are shocked when we see it. It seems a lot smaller than it was in 2000.

Grossglockner peaks at 3,798 metres (12,461 ft) above sea level - this being measured against the level of the Adriatic Sea. It's the highest mountain in Austria and the highest in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. From it's peak you can see for 140 miles or 150 miles if you count atmospheric refraction. Personally I've made it a habit not to count atmospheric refraction... Anyway it's high up. The views to north, south, east and west reach as far as places I've never heard of in my life... It is the second largest mountain in the Alps (to Mont Blanc) when measured from peak to the foot of the mountain.

So... having come up, we'd better go down again. The covered road on the left of the photo is a protection against avalanches. The meltwater from the glacier is trapped in a dam on the far side of the lake, from where it runs down a gully that remained hidden from the road into the reservoir.

Back down the hairpin bends we go, swaying merrily from side to side, looking at times down long vertical drops!

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