Stories from Bad Kleinkirchheim

Author: Markus Patscheider

„Every day you can sit outside there, but you know that you have to go down in the dark.“ This is the sentence that Sepp Pulverer, the innkeeper of the Kaiser Mountain at approx. 2,000 m altitude told me. You could see his love for the mountains in his eyes and you notice that he got sadder and sadder as he talked about closing hour at 4pm and having to go back down to the valley in the gondola.

I didn’t know what he was talking about yet, and I didn’t have any time to think about it because it was already well past 4 and I had to hurry to get down the mountain on my skis before the snow groomers began their work. I looked back one last time at the blue of the sky and the white of the snow covered Kaiser Mountain and began my first turns down the perfectly prepared slope. Even though the sun was shining and you could see forever, I was completely concentrated on my carving turns, which were getting me down the empty slope, closer and closer to the valley.

I woke up from my trance 15 minutes later, shortly before I reached the valley station of the Kaiser Mountain Train. The Roman Baths were radiating before me, but not from the light of the sun, but from the many flood lights. It was night! All of a sudden I remembered the words of the innkeeper! What happened to the day; the bright sunlight, the blue sky, the beautiful mountains? But the dispiritedness that the darkness created in me yielded quickly to pleasant anticipation – to head tomorrow morning back up the mountain in the direction of the sun. And I was sure to meet Sepp Pulverer with a smile on his face in the first gondola.

Image and text courtesy of Markus Patscheider for the editorial team of the website www.badkleinkirchheim.at