Trekking in Austria's Hohe Tauern. Allan Hartley
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Название: Trekking in Austria's Hohe Tauern
Автор: Allan Hartley
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781849658157
isbn:
Tourist Offices
In Innsbruck at the main railway station (Hauptbahnhof) there is a tourist information office on the lower level opposite the ticket booking hall. There is another at the entrance to the Old Town Square (Alte Statd) on Museum Strasse at the road junction of Burg Graben and Maria Therasien Strasse. This bureau is the only one in Innsbruck that is open on Sunday, and has a money exchange facility.
In Mayrhofen, the main tourist information office, the Europahaus, is located five minutes’ walk from the railway station, on Durster Strasse. There are other satellite offices located throughout the town.
In Matrei in Ost Tyrol, the tourist office is located in the village square adjacent to the post office.
General enquiries about visiting Austria in advance of your trip should be addressed to the Austrian National Tourist Office (see Appendix A, Useful Contacts).
Post Offices
Post offices are open Monday to Friday 08:00hrs to12:00hrs, then 14:00hrs to 18:00hrs. They have fax facilities and a foreign currency exchange service.
Innsbruck’s post office is located on the Mark Stainer Strasse near the entrance to the Alte Stadt, and on Maxillian Strasse near the Triumphal Arch.
Mayrhofen’s post office is located on the Pfarrer Krapf Strasse just off the main street through the town.
Matrei in Ost Tyrol’s post office is located next to the tourist information centre in the main square.
Post between Austria and the UK usually takes about five days. All the mountain huts sell postcards which can be purchased and mailed from their own postboxes. The mail is then taken down the valley, usually once a week, and deposited at the main post office. This means that post to the UK from the huts will take 10 to 14 days.
Places to Leave Luggage
There are luggage facilities at all the bus and railway stations. However for security reasons there may be restrictions on using the luggage lockers for longer than 48 hours. Leave a note with your belongings stating who you are, your passport number, where you are going, your mobile telephone number and details of when you will be back.
Alternatively, if you are staying at one of the hotels, most hoteliers are quite happy to store luggage until you return.
A group of well-equipped young teenagers
Health and Fitness
Taking children
I have been asked many times about the suitability of hut-to-hut touring for children.
Most children I know or have met love visiting the various huts and the sense of freedom it brings. The Austrian Alpine Club also actively encourages children to participate in mountain activities.
My own daughter traversed the entire length of the Venediger Rucksack Route and undertook the rigours of the Glacier Tour climbing several peaks along the way when she was 15 years old. If children are capable of ascending Ben Nevis, Snowdon or doing the round of Helvellyn then they will surely enjoy some of these tours. But only parents can decide, since some of the days’ outings are quite long. Children need to be fit, happy to be in the mountains for long periods at a time and easily entertained by reading books, playing Scrabble or simply chatting. The best thing, however, is to have a few friends with them for company.
Fitness
You do not have to be super-fit to undertake these tours but it is essential that you are comfortable walking for six hours continuously while carrying a rucksack weighing in the region of 12 to 15kg.
Coping with altitude
The average altitude of the tour(s) is in the region of 2500m to 3000m (8000 to 10,000ft). It is therefore not normal for people visiting the Hohe Tauern to suffer badly from altitude sickness. However that is not to say you will not feel the effects of altitude, such as feeling out of puff, a mild headache and slowed pace, particularly on the high peaks of the Gross Venediger and Gross Glockner.
The best defence against altitude is to be as fit as possible, to eat and drink normally and to get adequate sleep.
European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
This card, previously known as the E111, is available free from any post office: all you have to do is fill in the form to receive a credit card sized EHIC identity card that will entitle you to free medical care in any EU member state. Should you be unfortunate enough to need medical attention while on holiday then this card will help. However the EHIC only entitles you to those services provided free in the member state. It does not cover any aspect of medical repatriation.
The top and bottom line with the EHIC is that you will still need to be insured.
Emergencies, Mountain Rescue and Insurance
All the routes described in this book involve sustained activity in a mountain environment. Inevitably this increases the risk of an accident taking place. This means that a severe fall, breaking a limb or some other serious mishap will result in the mountain rescue team being called out.
As noted elsewhere one of the benefits of membership of the OeAV (Austrian Alpine Club) is mountain rescue insurance in case of accident. This can be supplemented from a specialist insurance company; details of some of these are available from the Austrian Alpine Club UK section or by simply scanning the adverts in one of the many climbing magazines. Similarly the British Mountaineering Council, the BMC, has an excellent insurance policy, which is available to non-members.
The value of insurance should not be underestimated as the cost of a mountain rescue can be considerable when helicopters, police and professional mountain guides are brought into use. Unlike in the UK, where mountain rescue services are generally provided free, in the Alps most countries will charge the hapless victim. Be warned!
Mountain rescue is as much about prevention as it is about cure so please practise your glacier travel before you go. Check out all your gear and practise the time-consuming tasks of putting on crampons/harnesses/roping up; and then practise your crevasse rescue techniques. Basic though this may seem I am still amazed how often we forget to do this and how often we get it wrong.
EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBERS IN AUSTRIA
It is worth remembering that emergency services operate on a different satellite frequency and that the following numbers can be dialled from a mobile telephone even when the phone indicates there is no reception from your service provider. Fortunately in Austria mobile telephone reception is excellent.
Mountain Rescue (Bergrettung) 140
Red Cross (Rotes Kreutz) 144
European emergency telephone number 112
Alpine Distress Signal
Help required: signalled by shouting, whistling or flashing a torch 6 times at 10 second intervals. Then a pause for one minute then repeat.
Answer received: signalled by СКАЧАТЬ