The Gardena Card in Use

What I initially conceived as a brilliant move and an example of a tactical masterpiece in managing travel companions has turned out to be rather mediocre in practice.

The flat rate for the cable cars has saved me some elevation, though only a bit; there are plenty of meters to climb here, even without the cable car.

Complicating matters is that my travel companion has now become eager to use the card as much as possible, which means the route is planned to maximize cable car rides. This wouldn't inherently be a bad thing, but unfortunately, sometimes there’s an entire mountain range between the cable cars, as we experienced on Wednesday when we squeezed ourselves through the Langkopfelscharte at 2681 meters, only to face a daunting descent to the next cable car behind us.

Prior to that, we had used cable cars 16, 17, and 18, covering almost 1000 meters in elevation. That would have been fine, and we could have taken a nice break at the lovely restaurant in the Langkopfelscharte before taking cable cars 18, 17, and 16 back down. That would have been quite an adventure in itself, as cable car 18 consists of a fiberglass cage about the size of a garbage bin. Two people are crammed inside, the door snaps shut behind, and off you go. Even at over 2000 meters, it can get pretty warm in that little box, as there’s only a tiny window through which a little fresh oxygen can enter at this altitude. So, you find yourself standing like in the Tokyo subway during rush hour, hoping that the contraption doesn't malfunction and you have to stay inside longer than necessary. After about 20 minutes, you arrive at the top and are just glad to get out. This moment of weakness is quickly seized by the travel companion, who begins the descent down to the valley on the other side of the Langkofelscharte. It didn't matter that the people around us were all armed with helmets and heavy climbing gear. When I attempted to point this out, my travel companion had already disappeared into the rugged mountain, leaving me with no choice but to follow into my doom. When we passed the memorial stone for those who didn't make it (all men over 50), it was too late to turn back. So, it was either continue down or add another name to the memorial stone.

Thus, we began our descent for about 2 hours, and eventually another hut appeared. I had already scouted this out on the map and knew the cable car ran from there. Unfortunately, it turned out to be just a freight cable car. The disappointment was significant, and I felt a bit like Columbus, who aimed for India but ended up in North America. But somehow, we had to get down from the mountain, and reaching the mountain station required another ridge crossing, including ascents and descents. I had never been so happy to sit in a gondola, bringing us down from 2161 meters to 1428 meters.

Once at the bottom, my travel companion was extremely cheerful because we managed to use 5 cable cars in one day. I didn't share this enthusiasm, as by my method we could have used 6 cable cars even if we had ridden the same one up and down.

As a first interim result, it must be noted that the idea of the flat rate card did not necessarily yield the desired success. Route planning is crucial, and I need to take a more active role in that going forward.