Deadly serious

At the summit we find the cross. Do these crosses represent Christ's sovereignty over the world or a place to thank your God for making things so damn hard? Thanks to the cable car there was no hard here. With the chains holding down the cross you'd think maybe Christianity is getting a little fed up. No need for God here, nature has done a pretty good job on its own. 

By now Innsbruck is far away, a couple of kilometres at least. The valley below makes for a perfect drop and that feeling of altitude. I'm sure some mountains at their peak can be an anticlimax if your surrounded only by equally extreme peaks. I remember Mount Snowdon, which is a baby here, appear so impressive because the surroundings were so majestic and the place where you stand is immediately so exceptional. As it is here, the views below remind you where you are. And to perhaps add a tint of absurdity, one of us has made it here with flipflops. It's something not missed by others around us, some of whom are equally out of place in their footwear.

What can you do? It's not every day you get to stand for a few minutes in a small cabin and be transported to places that once would have taken determined hikers or mountaineers a few hours to reach. It's a remarkable first world luxury. OK it's not Everest but to us mortals it might a well be. We've seen plenty of mountains in Switzerland but always from below. This trip would have missed its peak without at least once getting up there. And, hey, we get to do a traditional holiday cable car. Where would the world be without cable cars?