Vacation 2011, Day 3: Willi Schwaiger Weg

From 9/12/11

Today Started out rather slow. It was still cloudy from a passing through cold front and we were supposed to get showers throughout the day. So my parents and I went out to Maria Alm to do some grocery shopping. Hearing my parents argue with each other was not much fun. I just thought that this is something that's going to drive me nuts.  After we were done with the shopping my Mom wanted to take a look at the village church of Maria Alm. While my parents took a look at the church Daisy and I waited outside. After that the dark clouds and with that the rain was moving in more and more and so I decided that I just didn't want to take the chances with a hike out there...and so we headed back at the hotel. When we got back to the hotel, the weather looked way better and with a rain jacket in my backpack I went out for a light hike. We had planned to hike along the Urslau River and than cross over to the Willi Schwaiger Weg and hike this trail in it's entire length. The hike along the Urslau River is quite nice and actually very easy. About 1/2 hour later we reached a place called "Trieffen". It's a rain curtain, very similar to the "Weeping Wall" at Glacier National Park...but way smaller. We relaxed there for a little and then continued on the Willi Schwaiger Weg. This trail has changed quite a lot since I hiked it last. Lots of damage from recent storms and some avalanches did considerable damage as well. The trail is still OK, but no longer that great than it used to be. Daisy didn't care about that and had a blast checking out the alpine flora. Again she made use of her new skill of drinking directly out of a creek. Soon after that we reached the highest point of that particular trail. We could have continued up for another 2 hours to a mountain pass, but the weather was a little too unstable for my taste. So we started to hike back down to Hinterthal. On the way down we passed a colony of groundhogs. At first Daisy was entirely oblivious to them, but as we got closer to on of the burrows she got quite interested in the entire thing. I had to stop her from getting too overexcited, since I didn't want her to freak the groundhogs out. Further down we passed several creeks. Where a bridge was available, Daisy followed my lead. The last one didn't have a bridge and Daisy simply walked through the creek as if she had done that her whole life. For those of you don't know Daisy...this dog is quite water shy and for many years she absolutely dislike to walk through water. Why she suddenly started doing that and even seems to enjoy it...well I don't have the slightest clue!! Further down the trail we encountered again a herd of cattle. Well Daisy didn't care to much about the bulls, but she got interested in one cow. The cow was interested in Daisy as well. It was quite interesting seeing those two check each other out. Now my cow dog has checked out her first cow and it was a very positive new experience for Daisy. About 20 minutes later we were back at the hotel. Considering how the day started it turned into a great vacation day!