CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

The Plan

With some down time at base camp before the big de-rig we were looking for a non-strenuous activity to engage in. Inspired by Jono and the Balister's visit to Halstadt, we thought we'd visit the Altaussee equivalent. However, several people wanted to come who had other priorities (Dickon and Harry), namely, retrieving kit. This meant we had to wait for them to finish, which was estimated to be around mid-afternoon.

Reality

The kit collecting team were done by early-afternoon so Tom, Rosa, James, and I rushed up to meet them at the mine. However, after Dickon rather bluntly asked "Do you speak English?" to the receptionist she explained that the next tour was for children and we'd have to come back at 4. So we bummed off down to Altaussee for some Ice cream before heading back up.

The Tour

Having forked out 22 euros for ticket, we were all marched through a turnstile and handed a overall jacket and trousers each. While putting these on, Dickon joked about how it felt like we were being sentenced to hard labour. Once changed, we were expected to wait in a small theatre room until everyone was ready, at which point a film about the mine explaining it's history and contemporary use was played, at the end of which the screen rolled up and the curtains behind brushed aside to reveal the entrance to the mine. Our tour guide then stepped out and, in a pattern that would be repeated for the rest of the tour, explained first in German, then in English, about the mine and what we would be doing next.

Enter the Mine

In single file we marched into the mine where the air became colder and colder. After 350 meters, we were through the limestone layer and had made it to the salt. Magnificent multicolour layers of rock spiralled and swirled around each other while small formations bristled from between the seams. After a further 350 meters we reached another theatre room where we watched a video about the two salt extraction methods. The first and oldest, involves simply mining the salt and grinding it down. In the second method, bore holes are dug hundreds of meters into the salt and then water pumped in. The water dissolves the salt becoming brine which is then pumped out to a processing facility where it is dried back into pure salt. After the video, someone in the crowd asked how much salt was left and how much longer they could mine it for, to which the guide explained that they had dug bore holes over a thousand meters down and still not found the bottom of the deposit meaning they could continue to harvest for 2000 to 3000 years.

Culture

From the theatre room, we were marched onwards to a large chapel built from salt blocks in, what felt at the time, like a large chamber. Religious murals and decantry were strewn everywhere in classic catholic fashion. The guide explained that it was the miners chapel to saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners, and that he himself had been married there 24 years ago. He also explained that we should have been smelling a wonderful aroma of pine needles and salt but instead we had the even more wonderful aroma of cured pork as they were drying meats in a neighbouring room. After the chapel, we moved to another room which housed an underground cabin that would put deep sleep to shame. Here there was an exhibit on the Nazi use of the mine as an art store and how it was all nearly destroyed but for the courage of the miners removing eight bombs just before the end of the war. We then went down our first slid. Dickon, Tom and I were grouped together in a threesome and achieved some considerable speed. At the bottom of the slide, we marched through a tunnel of projected art works to the top of the next slide which dropped us into a truly vast chamber. This chamber housed a lake with an island in the middle adorned with musical paraphernalia. We were then all asked to be seated for a show during which the cavern was illuminated in a spectacular display of lights and sound. It was at this point the tour was concluded and we were all marched back out of the mine. Many comments were made about how much warmer we got as we approached the entrance. Back in the mine buildings we changed out of our overalls and were handed a complimentary thimble of salt.

Conclusion

I had a brief conversation with Tom after which we both concurred that it was a worthwhile experience for the amount we had paid. There was also much conversation within the group about the possibility of a cavers tour and seeing even more of the mine. Overall a good afternoon out.