Austria 5/25: The Ropes Course in the Alps

Rain was forecasted for the early evening, and the tops of the mountains were smothered in clouds. A bad day to take a gondola for a view, so Dad took us to a ropes course in Hinterglemm. 

After twenty minutes of driving, we reached a small clearing in the mountains. We looked, with curious excitement, at wooden beams and thick ropes hanging from tall pine trees. More than 8 kilometers of ziplines, ladders, and other classic ropes course elements were spread out across the wooded park, making it the largest ropes course in Europe. 

The admission fare was 33 euros per person, roughly $40 when you round up. My little brothers all tried it out, and so did my mom, my dad, both of my uncles, and one of my aunts. We were all skeptical of Dad’s enthusiastic plans to join us but decided to leave all judgements up to our ropes course trainer. Despite ataxia, Dad managed to get along really well. He took a long time when he had to cross ropes but did ziplines and ladders without much trouble. We asked him about it and he said it wasn’t so bad because he was already used to putting a lot of thought into his movement. 

 Our trainer was a senior staff member who was originally from Ireland. He said he’d worked there for 3 or 4 years and had built a bunch of the courses. 

 I went on the easiest ropes courses first, right behind T. Rex. He was slow at first, but I wouldn’t help him clip and unclip his harnesses. I made him work with the clips himself. By the end of the day, he had everything down so well, he could finish a ropes course faster than our mom. 

 Once, when I was climbing a ladder underneath him, he dropped one of his carabiners and whacked me in the head.

 “T. Rex, you just dropped your carabiner and whacked me in the head!” I said. He shrugged. 

 “That’s why you’re wearing a helmet.” 

 When we were up in the ropes course, we had a good view of the rest of the pine forest and could always see one or two creeks running below us. Every time we took a zipline, though, the trees opened up and we could see the rocky snow tipped mountains that surrounded us. Water from the melted snow made countless waterfalls of all different sizes. 

 My favorite part about the ropes courses were the challenging way they made me think. All the courses were physically taxing, but when I got to the harder courses, I realized I wasn’t strong enough to complete some of the elements by sheer physical ability. I had to stop and analyze until I found an approach I’d be able to take. 

 We all enjoyed the experience, and decided to go back next weekend.

Austria 5/24: Zell am See and the Schmitten

We are staying in a house we rented in Viehoffen, Austria. Our house is about sixty miles from Salzburg and sixty feet from the nearest road, in a mostly vertical direction. We spent the morning there, woozy from jet lag, with plans to visit Zell am See in the afternoon. Gondolas there could take us up nearby mountains, and the city itself was also very beautiful.

When Rob learned of our plans he was indignant. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “We came all this way to Austria and now we’re just going to walk around and look at things? We can do that in America!”

Nevertheless, after lunch, the fourteen of us gathered cameras and hats and climbed into the two 9-passenger vans parked on the gravel driveway.

When we reached the town, we took a gondola called the Schmitten, which brought us up to the tallest, snowiest peak and gave us a panoramic view of the Alps. 

 

The lift itself was really neat, but it was also terrifying. Firstly, it was steep, secondly, it swung a little in the wind, and thirdly, it was full of people. We all had to squeeze together until we were touching at least three other strangers, and we had to take someone else’s word that Rob and T. Rex still existed.

At the top of the mountain, there were a couple of little cafes and shops. It was warm enough for most of us to wear short sleeves, but there was still a lot of unmelted snow. In many places, the snow along the cleared-off mountain pathways was piled up higher than our heads. Everywhere we looked, there were sharp snow-peaked mountains extending into the distance. It was a particularly amazing view of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen.

 

A view of Zell am See from the top of the mountain 

We rode the lift down at about 4:30 and walked around the town itself. We took a well-shaded path that beside the lake, looked around at the small shops and hotels, and got a schedule from the train station.

I gave my camera to Sam for a while because he begged for it quite earnestly. He took pictures of everyone in our walking group. Most pictures featured the most unflattering angle he could find, and I’ve since deleted them. Some of his pictures, however, are remarkably good. I’ve decided to pretend I took them myself.

We were all hungry when we got back to the house. We couldn’t think of an Austrian meal that was easy to make, so we cooked tacos instead. They were very good.

Jane Austen and the Debate Team

I attended the Honors Pinning ceremony last Tuesday (the 16^th) and also helped out by greeting people at the door and handing out programs.

Two Saturdays ago, on the 13^th, I volunteered for two hours with my church. We did a service project with about 100 volunteers which just involved packing 10,000 dry meals to ship to areas of the world that have recently been hit by natural disasters. I came to help set up the assembly line stations and set out the dry food.

Micah and I went to see Sense and Sensibility on the 11th, a play put on by the ETSU theatre program in Gilbreath. We were students, so the tickets were just $5, which was very agreeable to us. We were impressed at the evident dedication of the actors: each played at least two roles and none of the actors spent much time offstage. We are both big fans of Jane Austen (and were both very familiar with the story). The play had been adapted significantly so that it was not just a period drama, which was sad for us, because we have the attitudes of 70-year-olds and are staunch Jane Austin purists. However, the addition of sunglasses and disco music was able to give it a less serious tone and make it more accessible to the current disco-loving sunglass-wearing college community.

Last of all, I started attending Debate team meetings to help prepare myself for my final debate in my Argumentation and Debate class. The debate team meets for an hour every Thursday, and I have been to 4 of them. I watched a debate the first meeting, participated in a debate the second meeting, played a debating game (superfight) with the team the third meeting, and listened to a guest speaker this Thursday. I like the team very much and think I will go to some meetings for fun next semester.  

The end of the semester, over all, has been pretty easy and full of opportunities. I achieved all my Collo goals and am very excited for what the summer brings.