The Nordkette Cable Car in Innsbruck

 October 19^th, 2023

It was about a two hour drive from Fussen to Innsbruck.  The first part of the trip was a narrow, windy road that climbed up and over a mountain pass.  After that, it was smooth sailing on a national highway.  I headed straight to Nova’s office in a small town called Terfens.  Nova is another paragliding manufacturer and I was going to spend the latter half of the afternoon meeting their crew and seeing some of their operations.  I went out for dinner with Kerim, who is involved with international sales, and we got to know each other better.

 

The windy mountain road:

On the way down:

The next day, on Kerim’s suggestion, I headed to the Nordkette Cable Car.  The Nordkette mountain range consists of 30+ mountains ranging from 1700-2600 meters in height.  The main cable car takes you up to 1900 meters and then a second one peaks at 2269 meters above sea level.

On the way up: 

It was windy and quite chilly at the top, but the views were phenomenal.  I really enjoyed watching the Alpine Choughs, a bird in the crow family, having a blast with the high winds.  They soared around, sometimes tucking in their wings so much that they didn’t even look like birds but instead black torpedoes hurtling through the sky.  Supposedly they can reach up to 200 km/h in flight!  I couldn’t help but think of my hang-gliding buddy Bala who loves to mimic the “cahs” of crows and ravens back in Canada.  I could have watched them for hours…but it was pretty cold.

 

Innsbruck:

A near miss from an Alpine Chough:

Alpine Choughs in their glory:

If you look carefully, you can see the 777 meter long Europa Bridge:

The hang-gliding ramp...it would be awesome to launch from here:

The Seegrube station:

Heading down:

At the end of the afternoon I wandered around the old town section of Innsbruck before grabbing a few beers at an Irish pub which was playing some good music…at least of my taste.  I returned to Hotel Edelweiss where I was staying and had an early night as I was flying back to England the next morning from Munich.

Looking back at where I came from:

In town:

Auf wiedersehen Austria.