The place we went to (past Golling) had a castle up on the mountain!! It was so beautiful, this is the best picture I managed to take... It was cold, and so out came the gloves, beanies, and scarves.
The bus ride wasnt the most comfortable in the world, as the climb was pretty steep, but once we emerged out of the cloud, it as amaaaazing!! The clouds actually looked like candyfloss, like you could jump in and bounce around on them. And it was SO hot about the cloud, such a contrast, that away went the gloves, beanies and scarves :P The walk from the bus to the cable car took about 20ish minutes, and was really lovely. I was hot though, because of the thermals I had on, which was not such a great look!
We made it to the cable car at about 1030am, and Oriol didnt want to take the walk up to the cave, so Anna and I went with him in the cable car. Im so so so glad i did, because from there we could see the one part of the track, a rickety old bridge held by ONE pole-- No Thank You- there was NO way I would go on that. So we made it safely to the top in 3 minutes, and enjoyed a lovely coffee in the sunlight as we waited for the others.
Upon their arrival, we continued up the path (another 10 or so minutes to the entrance of the cave. It was just like a hole in the side of the mountain, but once we got there, the temperature dropped SO fast, it was insane!! The views were also soooooo amazing, because we were up so high...
We were given these old school burners to "light our way" through the ice cave, and entered the cave. There was a huge gust of wind which was apparently the sole reason the cave stayed in its optimum temperature (I dont know it, but it was very cold...) We set off up the 700 steps, stopping along the path to listen to this tour guide sounding horribly bored about life. Either that, or it was just his accent :P We werent allowed to use the flash to take photos in there, so the photos i did get arent the best, but it was pretty amazing- there were Ice stalactites and stalagmites, one was even in the shape of an Elephant!! In total, there are total of 1400 steps in the ice cave, up and down, and some parts are very steep...
There was also some ashes from the guy who discovered the cave, back in 19?? (early 20th century). The first time he was there, he made it to the 30m ice wall, marked his final place with a black cross on the rock, and its still there today! He came back and continued exploring it in later years. He was killed in one of the World Wars, and asked for his remains to be kept there, which I thought was really nice.
My favourite part was when the guide told us of this ice wall- "This ice wall has lines like a tree has rings. It tells how old it is. Scientists dont know exactly how old this one is because of the roof of the cave, but we can estimate it is about 1000 years old. The cave itself is a little bit older, at around 400 to 600 million years old."
No shit!! Ha ha ha.
And that concludes my first, and potentially only ice caving experience. A good time, a cold time, but something I dont really need to see again :)
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