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Spent the last week as a tourist in the Austrian alps together with some friends and new friends. From Saturday 09.02 to Saturday 16.02 we enjoyed fantastic weather and great skiing options in this area of Austria.

The small towns who has joined in on creating 1 huge ski resort are Brixen im Thale, Ellmau, Going, Hopfgarten, Itter, Kelchsau, Scheffau, Søll and Westendorf.
Together this is 90 cable cars and lifts, 250 km of slopes and 70 places to eat and drink. So we should have enough places to go and see for 1 week. To complete all rides and slopes more than 16 whould have to be visited each day. A busy schedule for sure, but great fun too.

We went from Oslo to Salzburgh with Sterling and from there by train.

For the town we stayed in, I can say it's not much of a party place, but since we spent most of day in the slopes (from 9:00 to 16:30) we where not up for the task of getting drunk every evening either. Perhaps I'm getting old?

Just some great Austrian beers for lunch and dinner + some healing Jegermeister was all. Only places to go out where 2 bars and 2 afterski places or Apres Ski as it's called.

The week can be summarized by this:

Saturday:
Arriving and getting the apartment in the house we stayed. A bit small, but just enough size to fit 4 with little luggage. Nice with a drying room for clothes and a place to park the skiis in the basement during nights. Even had a sauna, but we did not try that one.

Sunday:
Took the free skibus from the nearby camping place and to the base of Brixen ski resort. A gondola lift brings you up to the mountain where there are more lifts and places to go. Only 1 slope to get you down all the way to town if you do not want to take the gondola ride. We bought ski-passes valid for 6 days and for the entire area for 175 €. Quite cheap compared to Norwegian prices. Daniel needed some ski gear so he spent the day hunting for equipment and other things. Me, Pavel and Oleg spent the day in the slopes closest to the Brixen gondola to get a little familiar with the place. We got ourselfes up to the highest top close by ( Hohe Salve- 1829) and got to ride the 1 seat old lift up to this place. An "airy" experience with only 1 chair to sit in and quite old equipment, but fun too.
In the afternoon me and Oleg where able to loose Pavel. We planned to go to a lift, and on the way we had to cross a big main point with a lot of people, and suddenly Pavel got away. So early in the week he had not speeded himself up to match me and Oleg down the slopes

Monday:
We went with the Gondola in Brixen up to the connecting slopes and we headed for Hopfgarden in our mission to visit all towns during our week. We planned to eat breakfast/brunch there, but could only find a small grill with some fries and sausages as only option. The sausages where quite thin, but tasted best of the few types of sausages I tried during the trip.

After Going from Hopfgarten at 620 metres we took the gondola and 3 seater chair lift up to 1500 metres and tried to take the correct slope down to Itter. We took a wrong turn and ended up in Søll instead. Here we got the biggest height difference from one gondola ride. From Søll, you can take the 8 seater gondola ride from 703 and up to Hohe Salve at 1823. So you can say it goes up and down in the skiing world We enjoyed a beer in Søll after the long trip down and quite nice to pay 3 euro's for the refreshing brown stuff. And even get it served in nice glases. Not like the way you get it here in Norway.
The slope down to Søll is quite narrow and mostly in shadow during the day so it was a bit icy and steep for my not so sharp steel edges of my skiis. I was more standing sideways than turning town there. But quite a bit of action and fun slope.

With all this up and down, we had to go home for the day to not be locked of by the closing time.

Daniel spent his day in the practise slopes after been given basic instructions and start help by the masters Pavel and Oleg.

I was quite happy finding out that I was one of the very few riding Telemark. ( could only see 4 others during our stay there).

*continue this post later*

A cold day spent in the slopes of Hafjell ( a little over 2 hours drive north of Oslo) with two friends from Opera. A lot of clothes, driving thru fog and temperatures between -4 and -13, but we had a great day and it's a wonderful fealing to have skis under my feets again.

Can't wait to February and 1 week of skiing in Austria.

Some pictures from the gallery:

New record of getting early up. Since I wanted to ge the sunrise over the rim, I got up at 5 so I had time to get myself to Angel point. A lot of other people had the same idea so I was not the first one to the spot.

Took a lot of pictures of the area around and since the air was cleaner now than last evening I could see better the highi mountains in the distance and also clearer pictures as a result.

After some 50 pictures and some talk with the other early birds I went back to bed so I could sleep some more. Had a lot of driving ahead of me so did not want to be sleepy all day. It's quite a distance from the North Rim to South rim and then to Las Vegas again.

So after a short nap again, I delivered my key card and went to the car.
Drove the numer 67 road again up to Jacob lake. Had a stop there to fill the car and clean the front window and turned right on higway 89. Very nice area to drive in. Open area's with straight roads that gets you thru the scenery. At Cliff Dwellers lodge I had a stop to take pictures of the very red rock in the area. Close to what I imagine Mars will look like.



Since it was very hot, I got in the car and continued my driving and turned the aircondition on again. To cross the Colorado river you have to drive up to Marble canyon before you can go south again. So I contined on Highway 89 and passed places like Bitter Springs, Cedar Ridge, sadly I did not take a picture of the place called "The Gap" and not of Hidden Spring Misson either.

A short driving distance after Cameron I turned right and continued on highway 64 to get up to the Desert view (South rim). After I parked the car I took the short walk down to the edge. I'm not certain if I was a bit tired or what, but I was not that impressed by the view here. It might have been as a result of the visit to the North rim the day before with the sunset and sunrise+++. Anyway, a picture showing how it looks:


Anyway I just stayed there for a short while since I had a long drive back to Las Vegas and the day was soon over. So after taking some extra pictures and a visit to the watch tower I went to the car and was back on the road again. I followed the road 64 along the ridge of Grand Canyon and took some stops on the view points before the road turned south, suddenly got the name 180 before I could breathe again to find myself back on 64. On the way I caught up with a group of Danish motor bike tourists driving the Route 66. So I followed them for a while. I forgot to turn at a sign telling me "this way to Interstate 40", so down in williams I got a short drive on Route 66. That's what following blindly tourists will give you.

I got myself back on track (Interstate 40) driving west and not much went on there. A lot of bumps in the road for some parts of it so I can understand why american cars have very soft suspencion. I tried taking some pictures while driving, but with the low sun, dirty front window of the car none came out good.

After driving for another couple of hours I had a stop in Kingman for some food, petrol and cleaning of the front vindow of the car. Took some quite nice pictures of the sunset I got while driving up highway 93. The road was so straight and with very little traffic that evening so not much else to do. I drove this road for more than halv an hour, but I had 1 major turn on the whole time. So 15 minutes driving 130 km/h then halv a turn on the steering wheel on the car, then another 15 minutes doing 130 before any more turns came up. Crazy.



After passing the most useless security test for driving across the Hoover dam I had a stop to relax a little and to take some more pictures. The light design of Hoover dam is quite beautiful so I wanted some pictures of that.

A short distance after crossing the Hoover dam, you reach Boulder city. Here I got a slow downhill and at that certain speed the car sounded as it was breaking down. I had the "pedal to the metal" but for some strange reason the car would not go proper forward. I could keep the speed, but it was like I had no more power. I came to the conclusion that I was driving a crappy car (at least a car with a bad transmission).

From Boulder City and down to Las Vegas I just had to keep my focus on where to to and how to get there. I did 3 correct turns, but I was not agressive enough, so on the last turn to Circus Circus I got it wrong. This was Saturday evening so there was a LOT of people driving and also even more at the Circus Circus since "everyone" was trying to find a parking space. I had been given the instructions on parking the car where I got it. But off course that spot was taken. So I was driving slowly around till I could find a space. Then the point came on how to deliver the car keys.

since the time was now approx 22, the car rental office was closed and none could take the keys. The reception people would not do it, nodoby knew anything or could be to some help. In the little magazine it said I should deliver the keys in a mailbox if I arrived later than closing hours. Off course nobody knew the location of this so instead of having fun the last hours in Vegas, I was running around trying to get this right.

In the end I threw the keys behind the counter and hoped nobody would find it before the car rental people got it in the morning. I have not heard anything after I left, so I guess everything went well.

After the mess with the keys was sorted out I went to a bar, got myself 2 huge mohita's for the price of 1. A 2 dl shot of Jegermeister and then I just went to bed, Angry and muttering to myself.

Took a very early plane back to San Francisco Sunday morning.

My original plan for this day was to take a gouided tour to Death Walley, but sadly this tours was only on Monday's and Wednesday's, so no chance to get there. Did not really want to drive on my own since I could not find any nice map of the area.

Anyway, I took a trip to the Hoover Dam just outside Las Vegas that lasted half the day instead. Left the hotel at 12:15 and returned around 4 after some interesting hours. The guide on the tour bus was very good in his job and had a lot of info to come with from the moment we left the parking lot to I returned in the afternoon.

From Las Vegas we drove south east thru Boulder city and after parking close to the dam, we went inside and took a tour inside and down below. Did not know that in the bottom the dam is almost as wide as it's high and if you took all the concrete and made a road you could make a highway across the USA. A lot of workers, great engineering and hard labor to get this dam buildt. Impressive that they did managed to create it and so early also.
I really liked the design also. Great look of it with the towers and the memorial monument created in memory of the workers that died during construction.

More info can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam

Well worth the 37$ for the guided tour and the 11$ to get inside.

Back in Las Vegas I began plan for my drive to the Grand Canyon and I went down to get a rental car. I got a Jeep Liberty 2007 model, but not a great car at all. Terrible engine (4,7! litre V6) that just loved to drink my petrol, noisy when I hit the highway speed of 70 (a continous whistle sound from the doors) and the automatic transmission was just terrible. So get another car if you are not only jumping around dirt roads on your trip.

A good example was the warning message posted on a sticker placed on the sunscreen "flap" telling you to not do any "weird" manouvers. Anyway, I stick to bmw and my 17 year old 520 is more enjoyable than this "truck".

Went early to bed since I had to get up quite early in the morning to start the drive to Grand Canyon North rim.

Today I planned visiting the Muir woods and after waiting some time for the Bart to appear I got myself in the correct direction for buying ticket´s for a guided tour.

Bought a ticket from the Gray Line company and paid 47§ for this. The ticket included the bus ride back and forth and the entrance fee. A great thing was that on return you are driven to the location you want to be dropped of. So great for me since I live quite some distance from the Fisherman´s Warf. Almost got a tour of the city in addition to the Muir tour since the people lived on a lot of different hotel´s around town. I gave the driver a lot in tips at the end of the tour.

Anyway, since I also today had a couple of hours to kill before the tour I continued to walk beyond the Pier 39 toward the Golden Gate bridge. A bit down the bay you have a collection of old ship´s so I had a walk at the pier. When I returned from my little walk I noticed that at 12:15 and 1:15 you could take a free introduction walk with one of the reanger´s as a guide. Today It was just me who appeared so I got a quite bit of stories told and spent a nice half hour walking between the old boat´s and ship´s. A nice way to learn some of the history of SF since all the boat´s have in some way contributed to the way SF developed. From transportation of goods from Europe and timber from north, to passenger and general "stuff" transportation across the bay.

After the boat talk, I walked a bit up and found the chocolate factory and area. Bought some ice cream there and learned a little about the company history from sign´s placed around in the area. Both vanilla and strawberry ice cream tasted quite natural and good, so if their chocolate keep the same level, it should be a safe gift to some of the people back home. Did not buy any chocolate today, but will probably buy some of this brand before I go home.

Since the time got close to the tour start I went back to the Gray Line office and got my ticket. Had a stop on the way buying a controller and nunchuch to my Wii. Half the price compared to Norway so just hope it works for European version´s also. Almost want to buy me a PS3 before I go home, but have to check out if it´s possible to make a region hack for the DVD and blue ray and check how the games work. Perhaps I´ll buy it as a hmmm holiday gift to myself

After crossing the Golden Gate bridge and headed up in the mountain on some winding and narrow road´s we found ourselves at the entrance to the park. Just have to say it, those trees are HUGE and TALL. Never seen so thick and tall trees before and even the biggest trees back home are small compared to the biggest Redwood found in this park.

Had only a hour in the park and would have been nice to stay there a bit longer and if you have time I would recommend the 3 1/2 hour trip. Then you really can have a long walk in the park, relax and just enjoy the area.
Took a lot of pictures, hopfully osme are good, and then back to the bus. A hour in the park gives you enough time to talk the main walk but not time to walk up on the sides and hill to perhaps see more of the area. I would guess that the tallest tree you are able to see during the main "road".

I will probably update this day a bit more later, but now I have to plan the day´s in Las Vegas and the area around it.