Höhenangst

Views of Untersberg, an Alpine peak that resonates in the local consciousness, fill the windows of the building where my husband works. His office associates recount tales of climbing it or skiing from its summit. Even non-athletes like Himself and I can discover its magic by taking the cable car to the top, which we did on Sunday, a warm and cloudless day.

The first part of the nine-minute ride to the top glides along the craggy rock face of the mountain. From the car we looked down on a small cluster of houses set in green pastures, looking idyllic on this bright day. As we climbed higher, we faced the sheer wall of rock from which sprang conifers with their undergrowth. I didn’t let my mind wander to the slender cables supporting the car, which rocked gently as its wheels passed over the first pylon, near the slope’s crest. A murmur of ‘Ahs’ filled the car as we waited for the swaying to subside.

Suddenly, passing the crest, the car bobbed and, with one or two jerks, dipped. ‘Ahs’ turned to gasps. Below our fragile car, the world had fallen away. We dangled over a deep Alpine valley, far beneath our feet. Between us and that distant valley floor – nothing. There was nothing in front of us save the twitching black cables suspended from distant tracks. Our anchor to security dissolved in the pale air.

To this point, I had kept my anxiety at bay by focussing on the solidity of the mountain immediately facing us. Now I saw away in the distance another peak, our destination, the station on its ridge not more than a speck. I tightened my grip on the railing, willing myself to stay calm. What am I doing here? I should never have come.

The station came into view at last, black cables swooping towards us as we inched, agonisingly, excruciatingly, terrifyingly, toward it. We were metres away, less than a metre, inches away – and the car stopped. We’re almost there! Please, just a few inches more! I want to get off, now!

Even as we finally climbed the few steps and came out into the station I was shaky, reluctant. Having arrived, we would not turn around, but the terror of what lay in front of us was nearly crippling. I delayed, looking at a wall-mounted board illustrating Untersberg’s flora and fauna. Behind me, just feet away, large windows opened onto the alarming panorama awaiting me.

Himself spotted a door and stepped out onto a platform at the side of the structure. I followed, reluctant, keeping my hand on the inner wall, as far from the railing as possible.

We stood at an altitude of 1,776 metres. I looked back in the direction we had come, nearly two and a half kilometres away. Out there, over the edge, stretching to infinity, lay a landscape of miniature fields, plains, rocks, trees, rivers and lakes, and faint clusters of pastel  buildings. It was beautiful, but my fascination with the view was overwhelmed by primal terror, the suffocating, irrational sense – too visceral to be deemed belief – that even by looking into the distance I would be sucked into the void. Holding the wall, I went back into the station while a boy of about nine, bright in an orange tee-shirt, posed for pictures on the platform.

Taking the next cable car down was unthinkable. I would have to find a way to carry on, like the others around us. Beyond the station, a path zigzagged down the side of the mountain toward a timber building. I looked down then quickly looked away. Path and building seemed utterly exposed. One slip of the foot and one would be hurtled away.  I thought of how we had hiked into the Grand Canyon, down trails that faced the vivid depths. It was walking down the exposed face that made me tremble; walking up, back toward the canyon rim, was bearable.

There was another path leading up, past a slope beyond which I couldn’t see. Away across the distance of several hundred metres, a rounded summit was silhouetted against the blue sky, a tall narrow cross on top it. Tiny figures seemed to move along its ridge. I looked away. Don’t make me climb up there.

Instead we took an almost gentle walk along a wide rising footpath. I stayed as close as possible to the landward side, grasping any rail or wall or rock I passed. Passing the terrace of a timber-built gasthaus crowded with people eating and drinking beer in the sun, we reached a resting place where the view off into the distance was protected by grass-covered boulders. Beyond us, vertical shafts of rock buttressed the wall of mountain, relieving the sense that nothing lay between me and the abyss. Tiny alpine flowers of yellow clustered in the grass. Vivid, deep-blue gentians fascinated me, calling to mind a D. H. Lawrence poem I’d read years ago and forgotten. Two women in their late sixties sat on a wood bench next to a man with an enormous stomach like a thick pad protecting him. Families with children clamoured up the gentle rise of hill behind them. It was clear that this expedition did not necessarily demand athleticism or mountaineering skill.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Himself reassured me. ‘It’s a natural response. Just give it some time.'

It was time to eat, so we settled on the terrace of the Hochalm gasthaus, which first opened in1962, a year after the cable car began operating. Opposite us, a handsome woman with high cheek bones rested her head against the weathered timber boards of the house, eyes closed, sun soaking her deeply tanned face. Our own skin felt thin and tender, vulnerable to burning at this altitude. One of the men at our communal table shared his sunscreen. We ate, drank beer and gradually the binding fear loosened.

My husband went boldly to the edge of the path that wound along the mountain’s north-facing slope. I stood a little back, protected by a JCB parked on the path, grasping its side. Below the countryside spread itself before us as we tried to make out landmarks. The Festung – the 11th century fortress that dominates Salzburg from its hill by the river – looked as insubstantial as a matchbox. Through the blue haze, we could just barely make out the pilgrimage church Maria Plain that stands on another hill near our flat. We tried to follow the course of the river as it snaked through the landscape on its way north toward Germany. Following thin green lines of riverside trees, we located the confluence of the Salzach and the Saalach, a few minutes’ bicycle ride from our flat. A sudden roar of engines drew our attention to the large oval that marked the airport’s runway. A jet would be taking off, but it took seconds to locate it as it lifted, toy-like, over the landscape beneath it. And far off, across a wide expanse of plains and rolling hills, lay a large blue lake, the Weitsee, one section of the Chiemsee – the Bavarian Sea – in Germany.

Though the mountain seemed to fall away just beyond the path, my husband pointed out that the slope below it was gentle. Daring myself and trusting him, I inched a little closer. He was right; covered with low-growing dwarf pines, the slope rolled away gently. Even if I fell – unlikely – it wouldn’t spell disaster. I began to regain confidence in the solidity of the ground under me. The predictability of gravity could again be trusted.

At last we started along the trail, walking along a wide path thick with pebbles, then stopping to investigate the crusted snow that still lay in thick patches in protected spaces. We were moving, inevitably, so it seemed, in the direction of the high summit topped by the cross. Looking up, I could see it looming overhead, surrounded by nothing but blue sky dotted with white clouds. I pushed away the dread of standing there and followed my husband’s lead. As we moved on, I took it one view at a time, one bend, one sudden drop, one hairpin turn at a time. Where the trail ascended up steep timber-edged steps, I clutched the rail; where none was available, I grabbed at stones jutting out of the mountain wall. Mostly, while we climbed, I tried to avoid looking into the distance, grounding myself by focussing on the solidity of my immediate surroundings. Somewhere along the way, Himself received a text. It the mobile network alerting him to rates in Germany. We had crossed the border.

The picture taken of Himself and me on the summit – 1,853 metres – shows my arm twisted awkwardly behind me as I hold onto the side of the cross mounted there. But I had made it, and from there I admired the view in all directions. Off to the north, we could see mountains, still covered in snow, that we hadn’t seen from the valley. In another direction, the half-dome Berchtesgaden – site of the Eagle’s Nest – stood closest to us, some ten or 15 kilometres away. As to my fear, it had not so much disappeared as become manageable. All the same, when Himself climbed onto the level top of a small pedestal – about 18 inches square and half metre tall – the highest point on the summit – I refused to follow him. The sight of him standing on the raised stone support, no matter how stout, with the vast emptiness behind him, paralysed me.

I dreaded the return walk, when, rather than being able to face the mountain as I had on the ascent, I would have to face the vacancy in front of me. I focused on placing each foot carefully on the ground beneath me. As long as I didn’t look out, it would be okay. Still, I couldn’t help but see, amid the beauty, the sheer drops just beyond the trail.

‘Coward!’ I told myself. How could I be so frightened, when so many others climbed without apparent fear? Where was my courage?

Then I remembered a friend who, following severe abuse and abandonment in childhood, remained haunted by emotional trauma extreme enough to make all relationships problematic. For him, even simple interactions could be perilous, and he fought to maintain stability through iron-willed control.

He likened this effort to his weekly climbs up Salt Lake City’s granite peaks: ‘I work each day as if that day were a little life, doing my best, not trying to jump off the cliff, or gaze over the precipice, simply concentrating on each step as I do when I'm walking the edge of a mountain range, since I know that not concentrating on the single step will lead to falling off the side.’

It wasn’t cowardice to feel afraid. Courage is what made it possible to go to the summit and back. Avoiding what would unbalance me was simply sound judgment.

And it turns to be, quite literally, a question of balance. Acrophobia, the fear of heights – what’s called Höhenangst in German –  is thought to be triggered when the body’s signals that it is maintaining equilibrium are disrupted by the absence of the visual cues it normally relies on. Undoubtedly, this offers an evolutionary advantage, warning us of potential danger. It’s no wonder the response is so visceral.

Again, as he so often is, my husband was right. While I still grabbed rails or rocks or any handle available, I was able to walk, if not at the edge of the path, at least in its centre. By the time we boarded the cable car for the return trip, exhilaration and something like pride carried the day.

May Day

Today is Saturday, the day we do our main grocery shopping for the week. It is also May Day, an Austrian holiday. We learned only late yesterday afternoon that all shops, all grocery markets, hardware stores, laundries – everything – are closed today. At least, so we were told.

So to prevent a grocery crisis, Himself left work early enough to pick me up to do the shopping. We were even able to squeeze in a trip to the new Bauhaus, the enormous DIY centre covering several acres, so it seemed, in the style of those in the U.S. You know you’re a resident of a place when your pressing needs include a strimmer for the garden.

By the time we brought the groceries up the stairs, it was late and we were hungry, so we thought we’d see if the nearby gasthaus serves food. Just a ten-minute walk from our flat, it’s a small place, a timber-framed building of about the size of a two-room house, surrounded by the fields that stretch between us and the local shopping district. Passing on my bike on sunny afternoons, I’ve often noticed people drinking beer under wide umbrellas at its outdoor tables.

It was nearly nine, and Himself was doubtful, but when we approached, we could see a group of about eight men, shadowy in the dim light, eating at one of the tables. Chances were that we could get a meal.

‘Drinnen?’, the proprietor asked. No, we said. We would prefer to sit outside in the dusk, though the grey clouds overhead were turning darker.

He put a table cloth on the small table and, before he brought us our beers, put a candle-illuminated lamp on it. Then he recited the short menu. The conversation between my husband and him had been entirely in German, however basic, but at this point Himself said, in German, ‘I don’t understand.’

‘What don’t you understand?’ the proprietor asked, also in German. Then he translated, a little halting but certainly clearly, the last item he had recited. A beef roulade with spaetzl. That would do just fine.

And it was delicious. We had found, perhaps, what I hoped we would, a place within walking distance with decent food where we could go of an evening or on a hot afternoon for a beer or two.

After serving us, Wolfgang, as it turns out the proprietor is called, unfurled and raised the umbrella next to our table. Was it going to rain, my husband asked. Wolfgang shrugged and commented that in any case, the clouds were getting blacker.

Next to us a solitary man sipped at his beer and smoked. Wolfgang stood by the man’s table and, with a gesture and word of thanks, took a cigarette from the pack that lay there. He stared off into the sky as he smoked, then went to check on the group around the large table. Occasionally, a car passed on the dark road, its approach signalled by the rumble of the narrow wooden bridge over the stream that winds through the field. We sat in the peace of the evening, pleased with ourselves.

‘Look,’ said my husband. In the darkness away to the west, over Germany, the horizon briefly paled. The sky darkened again, then came another faint light that quickly faded.

‘Let’s see how long before we hear the thunder.’

Something rumbled in the darkness, but it was only a car crossing the bridge. Soon, though, the sky brightened again, then again, and again. The flashes were brighter and coming more frequently. A woman who had joined the man at the table next to us got up to roll her bicycle into the shelter of the gasthaus. Wolfgang paused by our table. ‘Donner und blitzen?’ my husband asked him. Wolfgang couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it. We paid our bill, shook hands with Wolfgang and said good night.

Our brief drive was in the direction of the approaching storm. My husband drove slowly, pausing occasionally as lightening lit the horizon and silhouetted the trees surrounding the lake beyond our flat. Rapidly, the flares grew more brilliant. At home we opened the door from the bedroom and stepped onto the flat roof of the garage, giving us a view into the storm. Now we heard the crash of thunder as the storm moved ever closer. In the bursts of bright light we could see jagged bolts cutting the sky. With each flash, the clamour of the ducks on the lake rose.

Keeping in under the deep eaves, mindful of the danger of being struck, we stood transfixed by the drama. Illuminating the sky nearly continuously, the storm moved toward us. Rain splatted, slanting silver in against the lit sky. We settled into deck chairs, sheltered and content, remembering other storms. Himself recalled seeing a storm rolling over the landscape in Germany, where he lived many years ago. Similarly, I have the vivid recollection of a storm moving across the Salt Lake Valley as I watched from the University of Utah high on the east bench of the Wasatch Mountains. Himself remarked that storms don’t seem to move so dramatically over the Irish countryside. I tried and failed to recall seeing from our house in Southern California the similar onward march of a lightening storm.

At last, the storm moved past us, as it did lighting the sky behind the pilgrimage church of Maria Plain, silhouetting its twin towers high on a hill to our east. Then it began to fade in the distance. Other than the steady beat of rain as it fell, illuminated by the streetlamp across the way, there was little left to see from the roof.

Inside, I sat in the living room, trying to read my book on the history of Europe. But the intensity of the rain drumming in the darkness was hypnotic, pulling my attention from the text. I turned off the light and sat in the dark, half listening, half dreaming, until I was lulled into sleep.

The Fortress

Stepping off the plane into Salzburg’s surprisingly intimate airport, I was struck by the encircling mountains, some of them rising steeply right there, immediately in front of me. They reminded me of the mountains in my birthplace, Salt Lake City, where, seen at least from that city’s East Bench, alpine peaks rise with similar abruptness and distinctness.

If the mountains ringing Salzburg reminded me of Salt Lake City, the city centre couldn’t be more different. My husband’s immediate boss, visiting Salzburg from global headquarters in the U.S., was taking us to dinner in the Altstadt. On the bus from our hotel, we eavesdropped unintentionally on three American women, each about 20 years old. Obviously in Salzburg for a study abroad programme, they talked loudly about their class schedules and living arrangements until the most vocal got off the bus just before we crossed the river. At the Karolinenbrucke, as the bus turned right, away, we thought, from the Altstadt, Himself and I panicked, just a little, wondering where we were going. However, we were simply entering an area of one-way streets, with north- and south-bound traffic running on opposite sides of the river. After two more stops the bus set us down near our meeting spot, and we re-crossed the river.

Now, for the first time, I could see unobstructed the Festung, rising above the Altstadt even more abruptly than the Alps rise over the city. Illuminated, its white stone walls shone against the black sky. The bulbous blue-green domes of the Dom and what seemed like a half a dozen other churches bristled beneath it, also shining in the darkness. The river gleamed with light on one side of us, the steeples and domes clustered on the other, and dominating the whole was the white fortress hanging in blackness, blackness softened by a scatter of stars and sliver of moon

It was good to meet The Captain again after nearly three years. He and Himself had worked together at another U.S.-based tech firm, and they had built trust and mutual respect over their nine-year-long working relationship. By recruiting my husband for this new position, he had launched our Austrian adventure. Besides which, I like the man. Talking all the time of old times and news of his family, he led us through the narrow passageways of Salzburg’s medieval core. Even now, several days later, there’s an unreal quality to the adventure. It’s strange to think of myself not as a tourist visiting an historic city but as a new resident discovering the place that will, I hope, become home. Then, that first night here, the experience was dream like.

We walked through winding lanes, nearly empty on a Sunday night, that every so often opened out into a wider platz dominated by sculptures under pyramids of glass. Above us, church towers topped with ornate domes clustered forest like. Nearer to earth, glittering shop windows cast diffused light through dim streets. In the windows, light glinted from thousands of brilliantly coloured surfaces: jewellry, porcelain, antique silver, stylish clothes and eyeglasses, dirndls and alpine jackets, leather goods and shoes. Others were completely filled with bright Easter eggs painted all the colours of a vivid summer garden. And everywhere windows shone silver and gold with the foil-covered marzipan-filled chocolate balls, the confectionary specialty of the city, Mozartkugeln. Over it all, high overhead but very very near, the white stone fortress floated, stark and bright against the black sky.

We ate that night in a restaurant supposed to have been in operation for over 1200 years, since 803. Inside, dark wooden panels covered walls and the low ceiling, while fresh tulips filled vases. We sat and talked long. At last we emerged into the night, entering the series of large platz widening out from the sheer cliff wall on which the schloss sits. The lights cast shadows on bare rock, making it hard to see whether the buildings are carved from it or sit flush against it or whether there’s more space than is apparent between the wall and the buildings huddled in its shadow. Light and shadow, buildings with their sharply rising steeples lit brightly from below, empty platz and darkened statues, merged and separated. All seemed surreal; only the floating white fortress rose clear and sharp and solid in the night.