The day after our arrival we visited Grosseglockner which is the highest point in Austria (3,789) and has a ice glacier You can go all the way to the top with car. and there are sightseeing stops and restaurants to the top. The first place we stopped at i was pretty surprised as there was snow in the parking place and it was about 1 degrees Celsius and i had decided to wear a blouse and forgot to bring a jumper ( who needs a jumper in summer?) and all i had was my rain coat which didn't really help much. Anyway our first stop had a great exhibition on the Mountain and about its wildlife and geology which was actually pretty interesting. We where there for a bit hoping the fog would clear so we could see something. We where lucky as we crossed to the other side of the mountain the fog cleared up and it turned into great sunny weather, and the view was amazing.
When we reached the glacier
we managed to see some marmot who are local residents of the mountain :) there was also another exhibition about Grossegluckner on the top and of course a gift shop (yeay!) it was pretty windy and cold and half of our group decided to hike down to the glacier (i for some reason was one of them even with my unsuitable clothing) which turned out to be longer that we thought because the cable cars stopped working 2 minutes before we wanted to use them so (just our luck). It was a 1 hour journey down on a huge rocks and stones. After a while we started reaching signs that said the glacier used to be here in .... which started getting really depressing after a while when you saw that in 2 years the glacier withdrew like 10 meters and it started to get me thinking on the whole global warming thing which just got me more depressed because even if we want to admit it or not we're all responsible even if i do take public transport , and i do recycle but i still have a fridge i still buy products shipped over from a different continent. and its also my fault as 
well that this glacier has shrunk. and that the only way we can conquer this is if there's a world solution and everyone sticks to it. Anyway while i was thinking these depressing / saving the world thoughts we reached the bottom and i saw that i was standing on ice. The way up was pretty tiring but it was quicker (maybe because we where all extremely hungry and cold and just wanted to get far away from the place as possible) and this climb would of been soo much more easier had the glacier not have melted that much we could have saved a couple hundred meters and a few hours. All in all the day wasn't bad except when we wanted to stop to have a hot chocolate all the restaurants where closed after 4 so keep that in mind if you ever decide to go.
well that this glacier has shrunk. and that the only way we can conquer this is if there's a world solution and everyone sticks to it. Anyway while i was thinking these depressing / saving the world thoughts we reached the bottom and i saw that i was standing on ice. The way up was pretty tiring but it was quicker (maybe because we where all extremely hungry and cold and just wanted to get far away from the place as possible) and this climb would of been soo much more easier had the glacier not have melted that much we could have saved a couple hundred meters and a few hours. All in all the day wasn't bad except when we wanted to stop to have a hot chocolate all the restaurants where closed after 4 so keep that in mind if you ever decide to go.
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| the dieing glacier |
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