Austria trip, week 3: Hintertux, Salzburg, Ramsau, and Vienna Robert & Courtney Schafer June 2005 Click here to return to the main page After leaving Ebbs, we headed to Hintertux, a resort town in the Tuxer Alps. Hintertux has year-round skiing on the glacier above the town; but instead of hitting the slopes, we did some hiking and canyoning. The canyoning was particularly fun - it was very different from the dry canyons we are used to exploring in Utah! Sadly, we don't have any pics from the actual canyoning, although we hiked back up and took pictures from the rim of the gorge afterward. We didn't have a waterproof camera and the whole time was spent wading through water and abseiling down waterfalls. We were very lucky, too - just 2 hours after we finished our trip, a big thunderstorm came through and the canyon essentially had flash flood conditions as the glacier released huge amounts of water. After Hintertux, we drove to the Dachstein Alps, stopping for a short visit in Salzburg. In the Dachstein we stayed in Ramsau, which had terrific views of the Dachstein massif. Unfortunately our good luck with the weather finally gave out here, and we had 2 days of rain in the village and snow on the mountains. We visited some neat caves near Obertraun on the other side of the Dachstein, and stopped in Hallstatt as well. Once the weather cleared a bit we rode the cable car up to the glacier and enjoyed some hiking amidst the peaks. Then it was back to Vienna for a last day of sightseeing before heading home!

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View from our hotel room in Hintertux	Robert relaxes at the Hotel Neuhintertux	Robert in Hintertux with our hotel in the background	Alpine scenery above Hintertux	Ski lifts on the Hintertux glacier
Robert enjoys the scenery	The average distance between Austrian trail markers is about 5 feet	Abundant wildflowers below the glacier	Fields of these little purple bell flowers were quite common	And we saw so many beautiful gentians!
Courtney hikes through a flower-filled meadow	Approaching Kaserer Scharte	Robert on the trail above the Tuxertal	The view from Kaserer Scharte	Lingering snowfields
Courtney on the trail to Frauenwand	Courtney at another summit, with the glacier in the background	Robert above the Tuxer Joch hut	Lift towers in the Hintertux meadows	Meadow full of flowers
Robert on the trail back into the Tuxertal	One of the many long waterfalls	A common sight - a herd of cows	One of the major waterfalls in the Tux gorge	Wildflowers by the stream
So many flowers!	The lower falls, at ordinary flow levels	Austrian cows are cute!	Curious cow	Dinner at the Neuhintertux hotel
Courtney and Robert, ready for canyoning	Robert with our canyoning guide, Sepp	The lower falls in "flash flood" mode, after heavy rain	The side waterfall is the final one we rappelled down - but at lower water levels!	The lower waterfall in full flood - the darker dots in the spray are rocks that have been ripped free
Another shot of the gorge that we went canyoning in	Muddy water barrels through the narrow gorge	Looking from the rim of the gorge	A traverse set up by the guiding company for their shorter trips	That water is cold!
Double set of waterfalls in the canyoning gorge	This bridge marks the place where we started our canyoning, after scrambling down into the gorge	Thank God it wasn't like this when we rappelled down!	The peaceful Tuxer valley	The hotel had a really nice pool
The hotel also had a variety of saunas	One way to reach the center of Salzburg is via this tunnel through the rock	The Hohensalzburg sits high above the city center	Salzburg Cathedral	The fountain at Residenzplatz