VIEWs from Tatra mountains

Temperature dropped rapidly. It was probably the last chance to hike Alps without crossing snowfields this passed weekend. I suggest lets wait for snow and let the snowshoes and skis do their job. Meanwhile I prefer going through older pictures and searching for some spectacular ones. I want share few of these. These were taken by Lucie Knizova, my cartography friend from Jicin, the Czech Republic.

the drastic weather changes in Rax II

The previous picture show the touristics signs in fornt of Karl Ludwig house in Rax, Alps this saturday afternoon (13th of October). Temperature -5 C, strong and cold wind. Very surprisng weather considering that it was almost 15 down in the valley. We reached the hut just on time , the fog was getting more dense with every minute.



And these picture? Thats just the morning the next day. Bright blue sky with not even one cloud. Amazing. But still cold. The top of Hochkuppe stayed frozen as on the first picture until late afternoon, though the rest of Rax was already warm.

Hiking in Alps in this time of the year is about something completely different.

-- ACCOMODATION--

There are dozen of huts in Rax. You will always have place to sleep, so to bring tent does not really make sense. For further information about huts you can go to http://www.alpenverein.at/portal/index.php under huttenwege and huttenfinder. Great tool which will give you fool describtion of each hut with open dates. You usually pay around 5 to 7 if you are member of Alpenverein organization and maybe 2 or 3 Euros more if you are not a member.

What Can The WEATHER do within one day in Rax, Alps

Badlands, who would like to live here

I promised a while ago to post some more info about my holiday in USA. Here is a small section about Badlands. I think that the pictures speak the best but let me just tell you a short story as well. Badlands in summer that means 100 - 120 F, thats more than 40 Degrees Celsius, and lot of wind which is sometimes warm as well. You really dont feel like leaving the car, but if you do so, you will get a nice reward. Staying among the dunes far from the road, you can get that feeling of the first pioneers crossing this land. You may wonder how could some of these settle here? I wonder especially since I know that lot of them were Czechs.



For those interested how did Badlands appear: Aprox 37 to 28 millions year ago this land was well watered and much warmer than today. Uplift raised the land around 5 millions years ago and the White River which was passing through eroded a scarp, the beginning of what is now called the Wall. Since than every bigger rainstorm chewed away part of the Wall. This is one of a typical stories in old arid and semiarid regions in western and southwestern USA.