Make the trip to the airport count

 

Conference is over, time to head to the airport. How about an early wakeup, and trying to make the trip count as something interesting? I headed to the hotel sauna, then hit slopes in Semmering (one hour away), climbed and lidar-scanned a couple of caves, and still had time to check the apres ski in St. Corona ski resort :-) There was none.

I was pleased, particularly given that my week had been plagued by some health issues, quarantining for two days because some friends I had seen had gotten the corona, and then later being stuck in my hotel room because my ankle had gotten so bad that I could not walk. But miraculously, two days later I was able to ski and climb. Actually, driving still hurt a bit, that seemed more stressful for my feet.

Sauna photos:

Semmering slope photos:

Caves -- I visited the smaller Schrägaufzughöhle (N 47.630844:E 15.837343) and bigger and nicer Semmeringhalbhöhle (N 47.631123 E 15.836432).

Very nice experience, even though it was a bit hard to climb the steep snowy and icy hillside. The caves were not far from the road, maybe hundred meters, but they were also almost that far higher as well :-) 

I also recorded a lidar-scanned 3D model from both caves, and used my "Cave Outliner" software to generate a map from them. The maps are here and here, and the models are available here and here. To get a demonstration of how to play with the Semmeringhalbhöhle model on your own browser screen, click here.

Photos:

Finally, the St. Corona slopes had already closed week or two ago, but you could still ski them. But the village was empty. Photos:

This article has also been published at TGR. For more skiing, caving, sauna and swimming stories, check out the planetskier, planetcaver,  planetswimmer.com, and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. FYI: I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.