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Kilometers - 173 (David)
Passes - Furkajoch, Hochtannbergpass (David), Hahntennjoch
Today we split up a bit again. Paige (and almost everyone else) wanted to go to the Held Leathers factory outlet, but David wanted to go to Elbigenalp to see the woodcarving they do there. So David was on his own for most of the day, and since he had the camera you'll see what his day was like, and since his route was shorter than everyone else's he had time to stop and take lots of pictures...
When everyone else was getting on the road I decided I wanted to take some pictures of Unterwasser from the hotel. Many of the Beach's tour write-ups I've read talk about how rainy Unterwasser is, but we had beautiful weather for our stay. So here are three pictures that prove it can be sunny in Unterwasser! This is the road I'll be taking out of town in a few minutes.
Another picture in the direction I'll be travelling.
Looking back the direction we entered Unterwasser from. Note all the little houses sprinkled up the hillside. Very picturesque.
Leaving Unterwasser I quickly head over a minor pass then into the Rhein river valley that has Liechtenstein on the east side of the river.
As I was stopped taking pictures this cow was looking at me and "mooing" at me, but then when I turned to take it's picture it decided to go back to eating grass.
This is the Rhein river valley. This side of the river is Switzerland, the other side of the river is Liechtenstein. It's a beautiful valley. After this quick stop for pictures I headed down into and across Liechtenstein, and surprise! just past the Austrian border crossing I caught up with the group going to the leather factory outlet. I radioed up to Paige to say "Hi" and she said "Hi" back. I was riding behind Graham who was at the back of their group, and Paul and Linda who were riding on their own. I noticed Graham slowing down at several side-streets and radioed up to Paige to let her know that Graham was looking for the turn-off, but Paige wasn't leading, and before long they had passed the road we all wanted to follow up to the Furkajoch pass. Paul took the turn, and since I was on my own I followed suit.
This looked like a nice place to take a picture back down toward Liechtenstein, so I stopped for the picture op. Then I realized that the rest of the group would probably be heading up soon, so I crossed the road and got ready to take a picture as they came by....
And here they come! That's Graham in the lead followed by Leslie, Brian, Paige and Richard.
Just past where I took those pictures was the top of the pass, where we all stopped. I wanted pass stickers. I'm not sure why everyone else stopped, but it looks like it was time for a map consultation.
OK- trust me, there's a sail-plane in the middle of this picture. It sailed over the pass while we were there.
This is a picture from the pass looking back toward Liechtenstein.
And here's the group just about ready to get back on the road. I followed them out, and stayed with them until they turned north at Au, where I kept going east.
I took this picture because of the road sign. Yes, there were cows on the road in this area, and there were plenty of cow droppings smushed into the road as well ;-)
I stopped for lunch just past the Hochtannberg pass in Warth. From my seat on the restaurant's deck I had a nice view of this ski hill.
Here's the view I had down the hill, with my motorcycle in the foreground. Just after I stopped another lone motorcyclist pulled up and asked (in German) if he could join me. I said yes and we talked a bit. He didn't speak English, which was surprising for a Swiss gentleman, and I'm not fluent in German, but we could talk about routes and where the good riding in the area was by pointing to maps. He had a coffee, then was off again as I munched my Gorgonzola gnocchi (umm ummm.)
You may have heard about the heavy snows that this region had over the winter (there were many stories of avalanches over the winter.) I stopped here because there was a mud slide across the river, but I couldn't get a good picture of it, so I settled for this picture where you can see the remains of some cleanup work.
Finally I reached my goal: Elbigenalp, and I started wandering around the town on foot. This town seemed to have a larger number than usual of houses that had been painted with a fancy facade, and here's one I walked by. I stopped for a cola then rode up to the woodcarving school and looked at the woodcarving, which was fantastic.
This picture was taken from the storefront of the third woodcarving studio I stopped at. They all seemed to have pretty much the same stuff for sale, which is why I gave up stopping at any new stores and headed for the hotel.
OK, honestly I'm not sure what this picture is of... but it's probably someplace I stopped to let a knee-dragger by me. The Hahntennjoch was swarming with motorcyclists, many of them locals wanting to go faster that I wanted to go.
This shot is looking back the direction I just road up the Hahntennjoch pass (I'm about half-way up.) A few minutes earlier I'd passed one of the Beach's motorcycles parked at a turn-off just like this one and saw "Doc" catching some Zs on the park-bench there. I decided not to disturb him, it looked like a perfect spot for a nap :-)
Finally, a shot from the Hahntennjoch looking in the direction of Imst where I'm spending the night! I got into the hotel around 4 pm and had time to unpack and have a long shower before Paige and everyone else showed up. This was the hotel with the bartender who was doing all kinds of fancy moves while making drinks... it was quite a show!
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