The mystery of the mountain fan dancer

The chapel at Maria Elend

OK, so it’s not been the best of weather this past few days. Last week, baking hot, this week damp and grey. But this weather has its own mystery and charm.

Because Embach is pretty high up, we don’t have to gaze upwards to see the clouds. They scud down the village street, brush the church steeple. You can literally have your head in the clouds.

The mountains around us are dramatically cloaked in swirling mist. It is like being at a nightclub where the dancer with two fans, coyly reveals one tantalising curve after another, but never all at once. We see one part of the mountain, then, as the breeze shifts the mists, another is revealed and the first bit is hidden.

Taxenbach in the valley, glimpsed for a few seconds before disappearing into the mists

In this weather, water seems to seep from every crevice, meadow, hollow and rock. The sound of trickling, rushing, dripping and gurgling accompanies the walker everywhere. Some meadows never dry out and harbour special flowers that thrive on having their feet in cold, wet soil.

The Kirchbach chuckling its way to four capital cities and ten countries

Some flowers enjoy soggy ground

The stream which runs through Embach, the Kirchbach, is busy chuckling its way down into the village where it tunnels under the village centre and emerges to meander its way to the precipice before plunging down into the Salzach. Its onward journey to the Black Sea will take two weeks and on its way it will pass through four capital cities and touch the borders of ten countries.

It doesn’t have to be a brilliant sunny day for a walk here to be enjoyable. The air is cool, fresh, invigorating, inviting. Gulp it down. Fresh air doesn’t get better than this. After all, the sun will be shining tomorrow.

Swirling, dramatic views across Embach 

Magical transformation - but little change

This week Embach celebrates 200 years since the founding of the parish. The church is a lot older, the original chapel, later incorporated into the present building, was built in about 1050.

Part of the celebration includes an exhibition of photographs of the village assembled from private collections and taken over many years. It seemed a good idea to take new pictures from similar locations, to show how things have changed…or not.

The village centre is little changed

Setting out early, well before the six o’clock “wake up” call from the big bell in the church tower, it was light, but the village was in shade, the sun just brushing the snow atop the Bernkogel with a blush of pink.

Suddenly, as the sun hoisted itself into view, shafts of light streamed across the fields to the village centre turning wood-covered houses to bronze and bathing the church in a golden glow. No-one else was there to witness this magical transformation as dull light became brilliant and long shadows stretched across the meadows.

To think that this happens almost every day in summer when there is nobody about to gasp at the drama! Maybe hotels should rouse visitors out of their beds on just one day in the week, so they don’t miss it.

Among the many photographs in the collection are views across the village towards the Hochkönig mountain – some distance away but a still a dramatic backdrop when looking north. Here is Father Michael Seer the local priest for over 40 years until 1978 together with his housekeeper Frau Wawi. The priest was often to be found enjoying a beer and playing cards in one of the local pubs and Frau Wawi was renowned for her hens and also cared for the priest’s two cows.

The celebrations will include tours of the church and tower, and a march through the village on Sunday 16^th of June, of the clubs and associations, of course with the village band, concluding with mass.

The day would be even more special with an early start to see the magic of the sunrise.

Views on the popular walk to Maria Elend

Embach, view towards the Bernkogel

Morning magic - it's worth getting out of bed early

After the deluge: part 2

continued from yesterday’s blog

The main road from village was open again this morning, albeit under the watchful eye of the fire service in case of further landslips. The rain has stopped.

However, the village school is closed because the teachers can’t get here – this never happens in winter. Many people are unable to go to work and instead are busy on their farms and homes. The main road through the valley is still impassable in a number of places.

The meadow grasses are battered and ready for the first mowing. The mix of flowers and grasses looks good enough to eat. No wonder cattle in their stalls are bellowing to be let out. A few are grazing on the ski hill behind the church, their bells clonking a musical background to the sound of the stream rushing through the village.

Life in Embach is returning to its peaceful routine. 

After the deluge...

Embach is today cut off from the world. It is an irony that however hard the winter, however much snow falls, the roads are kept passable and traffic climbs the steep, winding road from the valley with few delays. But after a couple of days of rain, some of it very heavy, we are not only cut off from the valley below. Even if we could get down there, the main route through the valley is blocked in many places, in both directions.

Many of our roads have steep rocks, woods or meadows on one side and a vertiginous drop on the other. Rain like this causes mudslides and these can be lethal as well as inconvenient. In the past night at least three people in neighbouring villages have been killed by mudslides, in one case being pushed, while driving along a main road, into the river.

Often, homes are at the foot of a slope, or in a potentially vulnerable position, where, in many cases, they have stood for decades. Residents in these exceptional rainy periods are aware that mountains are not static. Mountains move.

Behind Embach to the north is the Plaike, a moraine left by the ice ages. This high, wooded pile of gravel and stones, slopes  steeply 400m down to the Salzach river. In 1794, after a period of prolonged heavy rain, a huge lump of this slid down blocking the river and causing a dam that caused a build up of water flooding upstream villages. It was a year before the water burst through the blockage.

Here in Embach, as well as across the province of Salzburg, the heroes are the volunteer fire service. Called out at 1.30am, our well-trained volunteers have for some 20 hours, continuously dealt with mudslides that closed both of the roads leading out of the village. Homes have been damaged and some filled with mud, families evacuated and people brought to safety.

Most villages have their own volunteer fire service. They have modern equipment and are trained to a high standard. Called into action by a siren which sounds across the village, and by SMS messages, they can be on the scene within minutes of the alarm sounding. Being from Embach our firemen have the advantage of local knowledge: how to find remote houses and who the residents are, where water is available, and how to deal with livestock.

The forecast is that the deluge is abating and we can be sure that in the fastest possible time, the council workers and the fire service volunteers will have the roads open and the village looking its usual tidy self. The sun will come out and at last the farmers can begin cutting the meadows currently knee-deep in grasses and wildflowers. Before long, the great downpour of 2013 will be a point of comparison, like the big snows of 2012.