Austria, revisited

My boss sent me back to Austria to learn some new laboratory techniques. The guy who organizes the workshop loves to pick obscure places in the Austrian Alps. Getting there was a challenge:

1. Drove car from my house to airport (15 min)

2. Fly from Rochester to Minneapolis (20 min)

3. Fly from Minneapolis to Amsterdam (9 hours)

4. Miss connecting flight in amsterdam and wait for next flight (7 hours)

5. FLy from Amsterdam to Zurich (2 hours)

6. Train from Zurich to Innsbruk (2 hours)

7. Drive into tiny village of Schroken, Austria (1 hour)

8. Ride in metal bucket on a cable to get to the hotel (20 minutes)...no joke. The only way to get to this place was by bucket on a cable or by snow cat.

This is the view from the bucket on the way up. It was cool and rainy in the valley, but still a surprising amount of snow for late April.

The hotel was at a high enough altitude that all of the rain turned to snow. Here's the view from the window of my room. That little shack is not an outhouse...not sure what it it, but there's no poop in it.

This is the avalanche dog. She doesn't do a whole lot...just saves her energy in case some dumb fool skis "off piste" and gets buried in snow. Then the keg of brandy goes around her neck and off she goes.

I woke up early one morning for a nice alpine run.