A chilly night in the Lienzer Dolomiten

Above our campspot by the Tristacher See where the orienteering event took place the road wound up the hill into the large granite Lienzer Dolomite mountains. So after some debate the pull of these wonderful looking peaks and the prospect of a cozy hut high up amoungst them lured us back to the lake to camp after our day spent internet hunting in Lienz.

The next day dawned remarkably warm and we enjoyed a slow paced cruise up, up, up through by now very autumnal looking forests. We were able to mountain bike all 1400 m up to the Karlsbader Hütte, and from there the veiw was spetacular.

In the evening we cruised up the nearby ´Rote Turm´which was a easy rock climb (Chris went right to the top...but i didn´t because easy as it was I would still have preferred a rope) (Anne is exclaiming "Christopher!" right now (-: ). I was a little annoyed at not getting to the top.... Anyway, we got back to the hut just as it got dark, and cooked outside in the freezing cold while everyone else bought expensive food in the warm inside, as usual.

In the morning there was snow everywhere! Rather a contrast from the day before and our initial thoughts were to stay at the hut another night, but the owners were not very friendly, and we had the impression we were only welcome if we were spending lots on food...grrr. We don´t like this commercialism in the moutains, we miss happy simple little NZ huts.

So, down we headed, back to Lienz where we found a cozy public library to warm up in... go libraries!