I've just finished up a week in the Austrian Alps (although almost Germany; the only road into Kleinwalsertal comes from Germany), in a "Chalet" (Hütte) with 40 people from Uni Muenster, mostly undergrads, many just about to start their Master's. The students could get some credit for this as an actual seminar; they prepared a talk (there were 14) and we had a rather swift pace.
[Getting from Münster to Kleinwalsertal and cooking for 40]
It started with the bus leaving Münster at 23:30 a week ago, Friday night. It began with a group effort to load all the rented ski-equipment, luggage and food into the bus, which was fuller than usual (normally the group is kept closer to 30 than 40).
I might've gotten 4 or 6 hrs of sleep, and ended up eating a sandwich for breakfast when we stopped in Allgäu (still in Germany).
As soon as we popped out, we had to unload the bus for the previous group to climb in, then carry everything to the lift and load the lift (after sending a few people up to unload on top). The Zaferna lift is astonishingly slow. Shown here at sunrise, not moving yet:
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| looking out the common-room window, at the Zaferna Lift |
We then carried (with some help from some sleds) the drinks and luggage and food and skis to the Zaferna Hütte, which may or may not belong to the Uni Münster; it's at least run by the Uni, and Uni groups have "first dibs" on its use.
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| view that morning out one common-room window |
The weather was gorgeous, the snow was deep, and the first thing we did after unpacking was to split into groups, some skiing and some learning to ski. More on that later.
The first two talks were that day, as was my "dienst"; I was "Chefköchin" (head cook) for the day. I made Szegedy goulash. It was a hit, and I was surprised at how quickly everyone inhaled 12kg of potatoes. Thankfully, I had 3-4 people helping out, so had them peeling potatoes, stirring onions (with a giant wooden paddle-spoon thing) and grabbing ingredients.
Something we had to be careful about was the "Pistenraupe" (Slope-caterpillar), an amazing machine that could come by the hut any time between 17:00 and 08:00 the next day, which kept us in the hut all night. Also, the lift we had to ride to get to our hut stopped running at 16:30; one day, a group had to hike up the whole hill in their ski boots (and someone ended up injuring her toe through this)
[Sunday and Thursday -- Hikes in the area]
Despite the snow on the first day, the weather started heating up -- the forecast was rain, and I decided to go for a gentle hike instead of going skiing. We walked up and over to Heuberg, the next Lift-area, and found a restaurant that had vegetarian schnitzel, for the vegetarian in the group. On the walk back, we caught sight of some beavers (otters?) sporting scarves.
The hike on Thursday was during the snow, down the lift and down to and along the river.
The snow really dampened the noise; in the mornings and evenings, everything was quiet but the rushing of the river. It was nice to get a look at it. It was snowing, which I haven't yet figured out how to deal with taking pictures of.
[Learning to ski]
There was someone to teach the beginners how to ski and someone to give lessons to the somewhat-experienced. I ended up with the beginners, having never done this before. Turns out, trying to learn to ski as an adult is rough.
We had a very throw-in-the-deep-end-and-learn-to-swim kind of approach, with a steep hill on the first day. I fell down every single time I tried to turn and got a wicked giant bruise, and took a break after a few hours of falling to eat a proper meal and have some semi-alone-time. The next day I took a break, and then was up for more lessons. Another person had had to sit out as well (she got her knee looked at by a doctor after feeling injured) , so we ended up splitting the beginner's group into the "very beginners" (her and myself) and the not-so-beginners (the rest), with plans to meet after lunch.
The weather was warm and sunny and beautiful (and the snow was melting :/).
The awesome snowman that greeted us had started to melt:
Skiing was terrible that day and full of me freaking out about falling off/down the mountain, but after about an hour of mucking around, something clicked and I made it down the hill without falling over.
This is the view from the beginner's hill (which apparently belongs to a ski school (or multiple ones)), which explained the constant flow of tiny children up and down the hill.
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| beginner-hill view |
So, my learning-to-ski went:
- day 1, nothing but falling and bruises and being convinced I'd fall off the mountain
- day 2 (after a day off): going down to the beginner's hill and freaking out the whole time, until the last 10 minutes, when I learned the "snow plow" and life got better. Although, my "plow" was me crouched way over (and leaning forwards) to "brake" as much as possible.
- days 3 and 4 similar to day 2, but much more coming down the hill without falling over, after an hour of freaking out
- the last day, at hohe Ifen -- no fear, perfect (clearly beautifully designed and artificial) beginner's practice area, which I rocked for an hour and a half
Friday's weather was awesome
On Friday I made it out (finally; had tried and failed in Wednesday) to Hoher Ifen, which was a solid hour away from us. They had an amazing beginner's area. There was a bumpy hill, a flat area, a way around a tree -- and everything was long and wide enough that even when I lost control, I could get it back.
View to the right from the top of the beginner hill (that's the tree you could opt to ski around):
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| viewing looking up the first big lift. Much more impressive IRL |
and check out a blue route (for the first time). Sadly, it started off with a super steep hill, and my legs weren't up to it, so after crashing into some snow, I went back to the lift and called it a day.
The next lift from there you needed to be on skis for (looking up Ifen):
After giving up on the blue route, I went back to the lift area and took a bunch of pictures. The views were breath-taking. I thought about going all the way to the top, but some clouds or snow or fog were moving in and I figured I wouldn't get enough of a view before I'd have to come back down
[A little about the math/talks/common area:]
In case you thought I'd say nothing about the math, here's a little about the talks.
I appreciated how it started with things I knew, (spaces, homology) and then went into what I didn't (Rips/Delauney/Alpha Complexes/Persistence diagrams). I don't know if it means I now really want to read the source books, but I'm open to perusing some papers. Here's a run-down of topics and some over the source material.
The room between talks:
And a gratuitous out-of-context picture of some slides:
and, to end, a picture of an awesome moonrise.
There was a beautiful moonrise during one of the talks. My camera made this look much earlier than it is; this was very late sunset/early evening:
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| sunset- looking towards Riezlern/Oberstdorf/Germany |
