goto: flickr

I am temporarily (or continuall) closing this blog: I'm posting all those photos on flickr anyway, and for the time being I don't see the point of maintaining both sites when I'm not even maintaining my flickr page properly.

So please, guys, goto: flickr - and thanks a ton!

s gseis

It's not a photo which is typical for National Park Gesäuse ("s Gseis" in Austrian dialect) - it could have been taken in almost any Alpine region as Aconitum variegatum shown here is not rare at all.

a butterfly tattoo for gabi

A little present for my girl-friend; I only fear it is a rather temporary tattoo, and that it won't last long. But that remains to be seen!

snake's head

That's one of the many common names of Fritillaria meleagris. It's really weird that every year thousands of people pilgrimage to the few known places where it grows here in Austria - just to see the flower. She's a beauty though, isn't she?

красный гриб

some spring flower

You get them in autumn too, on occasion.

flowering still

Who thought that there still are so many flowers around, at this time of year? I certainly didn't.

But strangely enough, no autumn crocusses anymore (usually, I found them till mid of november - not so this year, for some reason).

funghi edibile, non-edibile

So this is about fungi which, in principle, are edible, but which aren't really delicous.

Oh very well, okay then, some people love those; I don't.

all saint's

Instead of my yearly All Saint's post (which I wrote here), some common and ordinary landscape photo.

rax

latecomers

Those aren't supposed to still flower in october, even september would be late for them - but we had some warm and sunshiny weeks lately, which it seems prompted such late growth.

gentian

pasture

horror trip continued

Not the one in my private life but the one in Libya.

So Gaddafi is history - and good riddance: excellent news so far. But what is to follow? There's serious danger that the rebels will shoot each other for power as soon as it is clear that they (collectively) hold it (which supposedly will be the case very soon).


There's a good thing and a bad thing about Libya, and the thing is oil: good because people will have resources to rebuild the country, and bad because people might fight for those resources, named oil.

And even worse, the Western World might try and play a part in who will gain power now - and they ultimately will select a politician who, most likely, will do as told, and this person of course might not at all be the best leader for the country.
(Let's face it, to install democracy in Libya on the spot is an illusion; the question is rather whether the next leader will be a 'good dictator' or rather a tyrant. Or whether it will be possible to install an oligarchy of clans which balances the powers within the country.)

Damn the oil, I only wish we had an economy independent from it - for which, unfortunately, there only will be a chance after mankind has fought the war for the last available oil resources, which of course still lies in the future.

horror trip

Even though I found some cannabis growing wild lately (some fruiting and some flowering, on different places, a few days ago) I am no consumer, and the horror trip as described below therefore is real.

Silly me went up Mixnitz Bärenschützklamm and further up a mountain, and for the fun of it, or so it seems, silly me decided to go criss-cross on the descent.

Down steep slopes I went, I had to climb a small rock face (and nearly fell down it), later there was some raw rubble-and-stone ditch, even more and even steeper hills, spiky young spruce and thorny blackberries; in other words, I fell several times (and on one occasion only a young spruce tree was my saviour, to which I clung despite its stinging needles), I've got grazes everywhere around my feet and arms, but no serious damage was done and I'm back home again.

Only thing I know is that next time I just might decide not go criss-crossing. Probably.

wechsel

... autumn

veitsch

Some impressions from my last near ascent - to Styrian Veitsch peak, which I almost climbed on sunday (and sorry for the delay but I was without internet for a couple of days, again). Weather didn't look very promising at the beginning ...

... but then fog and low-lying clouds also can be quite nice, right?

The hill above isn't the peak yet, nor is the one below.

But this one is it - the so-called Hohe Veitsch (it is a female mountain, by grammatical gender in German language of course; or what else did you have in mind?), 1981 metres above medium sea level.

Well, I did wait for quite some time, with the clear intention of climbing the final peak; however, I had to wait approximately 50 metres away, and the equivalent of two flights of stairs below, as the peak was occupied by other mountaineers continuously - even before a group left the next one was already going up: they took turns of posing for the peek peak victory photograph. Which of course is extremely bad style, I never could do that.

So I had to give up after waiting for almost an hour. Unlike my compatriot Christian Stangl who lied about climbing K2 I am honestly admitting that I failed to conquer Veitsch peak, however I succeeded in my near-ascent of Veitsch, and triumphantly so! For that those photos are proof enough, aren't they?

Well, and when I descended again even the sun came out and awarded me with a spectacular panorama.

Of flowers there wasn't much to be seen anymore, not at this time of year - except for this gentina (Gentianella "styriaca", a more-or-less transitional group of Gentianella species) of which there were hundreds of thousands.

wechsel peak

'Wechsel' actually means 'change' in English, but also 'bill of exchange', 'draft', etc. Here it is the name of a mountain, and probably the German meaning is derived from 'Wechsel' as in 'Wildwechsel' = route, path deer use in the wilderness: it would make sense there. :)

Anyway, this isn't Wechsel peak but one of its minor cousins, and in the background you can see (from left to right) Stuhleck mountain (the not-so-rocky-one), then rocky Rax massif and Schneeberg mountain.

I had to put in a great deal of effort to get to this place; it is one of the fountain streams of Feistritz river, one of many medium-sized Styrian rivers:

(I really had!! I'm still very tired as I write this; strangely enough, Wechsel is an easy tour, but I took a difficult and long route.)

I left my flat shortly after sunrise, this photo however was taken close to sunset - when I was almost back at my car again. I fear there'll be some pain from sunburn and sore muscles tomorrow but it doesn't matter, I had a great time up there!

my knee hurts

On New Years Eve 2008 I went skiing on Stuhleck mountain - and hurt my knee in the process. Surgery was necessary, but for some reasons didn't deal with my cruciate ligaments. And today, my next near-ascent to an Alpine mountain took me back to Stuhleck; my knee began to hurt as I neared the place where the accident happened ... no really! (The place is awfully ugly in summer: some skiing slopes really look kaputt in summer. This shot was not taken there but on the other side of the hill.)

Anyway, after successfully avoiding the peak (which is rather busy with tourists; the shot above is taken from near the peak, with a panorama of Rax and Schneeberg mountain) I descended, and this time without hurting any part of my body. So some victory this was - Stuhleck mountain, I've finally overcome you!

(PS: I am especially proud of successfully having avoided all that cow dung lying around there. No, don't laugh - this indeed was the most difficult task of the whole operation!)