08/08/17: Stilluptal "private valley" guided walk, Austria

We met the Thomson rep Shell (Michelle? Shelley?) at the Mayrhofen Europahaus – a futuristic civic building that serves as the tourist information centre and as a concert venue. (They have traditional folk artistes Rita & Andreas playing there on Friday for €16.50, or you can see them for free at the Berghof hotel bar the night before.) Shell was no longer wearing the traditional dirndl costume she had on when she gave us the town tour on Sunday.

The mini-buses arrived and drove us to Grüne-Wand-Hütte up a winding, narrow mountain pass that was fairly hair-raising (although the forestry starting at the edge of the road provided some reassurance that we couldn't skid off into the abyss). We were up at an elevation of 1,438 metres, very close to the Italian border. The buses emptied out (1) and our group of 30 or so then began the 5-mile walk back down the valley. (2–3)
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There were beautiful mountain waterfalls with the water cascading off multiple shelves. (4) Cows wandered to the side of the path and sometimes right across it. (5) They wore cowbells that made a constant clanging sound (presumably they all have constant tinnitus). We even met two goats. (6) Technicolour butterflies fluttered by.

I had bought a large straw hat in Mayrhofen yesterday out of slight desperation re: sunstroke and sunburn from walking to Hippach, so wore that for the duration. It flew off a couple of times, and once needed me to go right to the precipice edge to retrieve it. (OK, maybe not a precipice, but it was steep enough for someone with vertigo.)
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After we had descended to 1,200 metres, the halfway point was marked by the one building along the way – a lovely cafe at Stillupperhaus. (7) We had coffee and sublime coconut cake, sitting outside under the sun umbrellas with a bright chorus of cowbells ringing across the pastures between us and the river. Inside, there were several stuffed marmots: one of them was frozen forever in the moment of being attacked by a similarly stuffed eagle.
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The second half of the hike (8) took us down to the reservoir at 1,108 metres, ending in a walk through a rugged tunnel hacked out of the mountain. (9–10) We talked to Shell about her experiences as a rep, including skiers getting injured. “I’ve had someone die on me,” she admitted, grimly. A tough, no-nonsense Yorkshire lass who climbs mountains even on her day off, she patiently answered questions about everything from farming to marmots. (11) 

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Lots of signposts warned of falling rocks and there was plenty of evidence of this too.

We saw very few birds, which was a surprise, and certainly no eagles.

We finished at the Alpengasthaus Wasserfall, where the minibuses collected us for the drive back along the mountain roads to Mayrhofen. (12–13)
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Miles walked: 5
Cats spotted: 1 (with no tail), seen in town from mini-bus