My Whiteboard: Obertraun & Dachstein Ice Caves

We took a quick weekend trip to the little village of Obertraun along Hallstatt lake. It's a UNESCO world heritage site. Whatever that is. I think basically that means it's a point of some importance. Anyway, I met up with Heidi in Krems and we scratched out to Hallstatt for the weekend. It takes about 4 hours to get there from Vienna. Everything around here is incredibly close. Fortunately the train wasn't too packed, in fact, we were the only people on it for most of the trip. Needless to say, we brought wine and cheese along.

The trip alone was worth it. The limestone alps dont compare to the Sierras. Totally different, everything feels like Yosemite valley because it's all carved out by glaciers. Plus it's green and there are waterfalls everywhere. We stayed in the small village of Obertraun, on the south side of the lake. It's their off season since it's a new ski town. So rooms were easy to come by, in fact our hotel was only about a 5 minute walk from the train station. From there you can go anywhere. The ski resort is new and still expanding, there was a development still under construction that's to open this winter.

Since the area is known for it's Karst geography (I get all this since my GF is a Geologist) there are a bunch of caves. Neither of us had seen ice caves before. So we decided to check that out. It ate up the morning and was completely worth it. But a word of warning. If you are afraid of heights or confined spaces, dont do this sight seeing trip. The trip up is in a cable car that ascends about 6000' up in a few miles. And it's a long way down - a sheer rock face you ascend. Luckily it's pretty quick.

The ice caves were pretty confined. And a bit chilly, but that's to be expected in ice caves right? So bring warm clothes. I had two layers on and got cold. It's damp and steep too. It was really cool to see, there are a few big chambers, a glacier inside, and a waterfall. There's a chamber that they found old bear bones in too, from the now extinct european cave bears.

Check it out if you aren't afraid of heights or confined spaces. But it's only open seasonally (March-Oct) I believe. During the winter the cable car's take you to a ski resort at the top of Dachstein Mountain.