Oberaudorf

Oberaudorf! Say that 10 times fast! Ha ha! So this cute little town at the foot of the mountains is about 15 minutes train ride from my town. During the summer, their part of the mountains is popular for hiking and family fun. You can take the ski lift to the top where you can go hiking, eat at the restaurant, play at the jungle gyms, say hi to the goats, and then finish the day by taking the slide down to the bottom.

Here's a panoramic view of Oberaudorf behind us while going up the ski lift. You can see the beautiful Autumn colored trees in the background. A cool feature of ski lifts in Germany is that there is a bar below you to rest your feet/skis/snowboard on. I know in the states you usually rest one foot on the other, but still a pain for that foot being rested on. :)



Here's the top of the ski lift, where you have the Kaiser mountains as the backdrop while you sit on one of the wooden benches watching kids play or feeding the goats.


Me failing to look cool in a pose.


Hiking around, I caught this great scene--green grass, fall colored trees, the magnificent Kaiser mountains in the backdrop. And if you have high speed internet, watch this.

If you would like this picture as your desktop wallpaper, use this image.

So after hiking around a bit, you can take this really big slide down.You ride on a little sled with wheels and a brake handle and let gravity take you for a ride.

One of the things you have to worry about is getting stuck behind a slow person if you like to go fast, so you have to space out the launches. I have to admit, I was somewhat slow, applying the brakes too often, but it was my first time and I was afraid of going over the edge if I went around a turn too fast! The next time I go, watch out! ;)

Here's the under view of the same above picture. The big slope thing on the right is for the long jump in skiing (I think that's what it's called), like those you see on TV.


Coming down the end of the slide, this is where you gain more speed through the straight part of the track.


So, it was a nice half day excursion. Relatively cheap and a close quick weekend activity. Train tickets were a few bucks and the ski lift & slide tickets were about 10 euros.