Wasatch Weather Weenies

We leave Innsbruck in less than 24 hours.  I finished my grades for my classes on Wednesday and we've been trying to enjoy our final couple of days in Innsbruck.  Things have changed a lot during our stay.  We arrived in mid January after an incredible storm cycle that left the northern Alps buried.  The Inn Valley was a winter wonderland during the first few weeks of our visit. In contrast, June will go down as the warmest on record in Austria and the last few days have been blisteringly hot.  All-time June temperature records were set two days in a row in the Tyrol with a 36.7ºC on Tuesday in Innsbruck and then a 37.5ºC in Imst on Wednesday.  The latter is 99.5˚F in US units and would qualify for a max of 100 with round up.  The previous June record was 36.6˚C.  A photo taken from the same spot as above shows a nearly snow-less scene, with hazy skies.  We feel fortunate to be at about 600 meters above sea level and in a modest s...

Frau Hitt is a prominent rock spire that sits on the Nordkette ridge above Innsbruck (photo below taken in February). The rock spire bears the name Frau Hitt because it resembles a woman on a horse.  Legend suggests that Frau Hitt and her horse were petrified after offering a beggar only a stone to eat.  In addition, our apartment here is on Frau Hitt Strasse and I look at it every day when I walk home from work.  Thus, I've been hoping to pay Frau Hitt a visit. I finally had the opportunity today.  Originally I planned on doing it from our apartment, but the heat is on here in Europe and it would have been a 5000+ vertical foot sufferfest, so I elected to utilize the Nordkettenbahn to save my self some pain and agony. After riding the cable car to Seegrube, one does a long traverse westward below the crest of the Nordkette.  Today there were a few snow fields to cross, but they weren't difficult. I did the hike solo, but found a few friends along ...

Our Austrian Adventure is quickly coming to an end with nearly six months gone by in the blink of an eye.  This weekend is our last in Innsbruck and I can no longer look at mountains and think "maybe we could hike that next weekend." Things have changed a lot since we arrived.  We arrived in Austria to find a winter wonderland as Mother Nature was very good to the northern Alps prior to our arrival.  Sadly, Delta lost our ski bags (found eventually), so on one of our first days we took the train to Seefeld, site of the 2019 Nordic World Championships, just to look around and took the photo below. Here's how things looked today, backhoe and all.  I'm not sure if this is related to the world championships, but a major restoration project is underway. We weren't treated to bluebird skies this weekend.  Instead, it was mostly cloudy.  Today we hiked to the Nördlinger Hutte above Seefeld and it was veiled in clouds. Fortunately, it was warm insi...

Austrian society is very egalitarian, except in a lift line where it is survival of the fittest! My time in Austria is nearing an end.  After just over five months here, there are a few things that are noticeably different from the United States.  In particular, poverty and homelessness are less apparent. At the same time, extreme wealth, at least in the form of trophy homes and the like, is also less evident.  Crime of all types, but especially violent crime, seems to be much lower.  Although there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics, I thought it might be interesting to look at some statistics from the two countries to see if my impressions are reasonable.  You should be aware that I am wading deeply here into areas well outside my expertise, and that economic and social statistics are very dependent on the assumptions used to create them, but here goes anyway.  Poverty and Wealth According to the World Bank , the percentag...

With our time in the Alps nearing and end, we took a long weekend in the Dolomites, which exceeded our high expectations in every way. I'm no geologist, and I don't really know where the Dolomites start and where they end.  What I do know is that they are fundamentally different from the Alps of the Austrian Tirol, which deeply incised, broad valleys enable one to penetrate deeply into the mountains.  Instead, the Dolomites are more of a jumble of mountains, which means getting anywhere means traveling on some of the most unbelievable mountain highways you can imagine. We're talking hairpin after hairpin.  Massive ascent followed by massive descent.  One pass we went over involved more than 30 hairpins on the climb and then another 30 or so on the descent.   Below is a very small sample from Passo Falzarego. I don't think I've ever had more fun driving.  The underpowered Skoda we rented has no clutch or breaks left.  On the other hand, t...

Over the past couple of weeks, the combination of snowmelt and frequent rainfall, including recent thunderstorms, has transformed the Inn River from a beautiful river with a tint of green into a muddy torrent. The  photos below were taken from the Inn Bridge near old town a few months ago and today, illustrating how the Inn River is filled nearly to the top of its human-made banks. Photo: Andrea Steenburgh Photo: Andrea Steenburgh Another perspective is provided by the photo below, taken from my building at the University of Innsbruck and looking down on the University Bridge. This morning, I noticed workers installing a temporary fence along the base of the building, presumably for protection.  On that lowest level is a library.  Gulp! The hydrogram below covers the past few days and shows a rise of about 2 meters in th epast two days, putting it above a "one in 30 year level."  A better way to think about it is that the odds of such a river...