Hike #2 to Sulzenau Hutte at 2196metres...Sept 03 2009

I've had the best day!
It startted out with yet another hearty little breakfast and another nice piece of pie! Ha! I'm turning into an Italian with my bun that I take away (you see I'm smearing it with Nutella and when I eat it at 1100 I absolutely love it!).
A new group today and a new location.
We went up 660 metres up a mountain to see the water falls in this area and to have lunch in one of the huts (this enabled me to envision, or at least relate a bit, to what Aviva and Rumon are up to for 2 weeks!). It took us nearly 2.5hrs to reach the destined plateau and then due to the rain we didn't hang out on the summit, and instead found comfort in the warmth of the chalet---or hut if you will.
My hiking friends from yesterday, Gabi and Roger, are German and can tell us all what's on the menu---and thank goodness because you cannot try to decode this language.
The weather was dodgy this morning and it started to rain. Well, hiking is a bit like being unsure of what you want to wear for the day, you feel hot, you sweat, you get cold, and you get cold again, so every 15 minutes you can end up changing, removing clothes and/or adding some.
I can see how the pros do it, they pack light (my aunt Lucile and uncle Maurice will smile at this) and they come equiped with common sense items. For my first hike I didn't too bad actually and I've found that I am rather fond of this type of activity.

Hiking offers you sights, sounds, smells, and a feeling of well being that you just can't get when you're in a crowded and noisy place. The water falls we visited are amazing and powerful. The thunder of water confidently landing, splattering, and forcing it's weight on the rocks is a sound to be remembered. And when you get near, the force of this manifestation lifts a breeze full of mist right up into your nostrils----lovely.

On our way back we saw wild mountain goats and I guess they are tame because a couple of young children were petting a baby. I think love was in the air, Sir Billy Goat had big ideas for his long haired mate, but she didn't think so. Next to this scene in a green pasture, cows with big bells clonking away with each movement ate grass quietly as if there was no one there. This place has so much to offer. I mentioned that we ate our lunch at the lodge on top of the mountain, but for those that don't want to make that treck there is yet another lodge below. Hey, options are good.

The pictures I'm posting are of this area and in one of them you'll see zigzags along the mountain side, that's the little treck we took to make it to the top and that took us 45 minutes. Later, the rain and the sun surprised us with a rainbow and I was lucky to capture it in the 5 minutes that it lasted from one of the windows in the lodge.

I'm hoping to make it to tomorrow hike as many of the people I've walked/hiked with are going to be there and it would be great to end my trip to Innsbruck with a final outdoor activity. I'll see.

I leave Innsbruck tomorrow night at 8:30pm via train to Munich so that I can catch my flight at 0700 on Sept 5th to meet up with Claude!!!!! Yahoooooooo.

Anyways---here are some pictures---Dd

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Mom-Merci pour ton mots---et je pense a toi et notre famille souvent.
Je t'embrasse fort.
D xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx