Each morning in the beautiful Alps the skies are generally clear (unless a storm system from the Atlantic is passing through), and the temperature steadily rises as the sun ascends. Throughout the day warm air creeps up and forms clouds over the majestic mountains. The breeze upward (called the Fohn ) continues until the long shadows of dusk fall upon the valleys, and then abruptly ceases. As the sun begins to set, the breeze from the sunlit day reverses direction, returning from the mountain peaks and sweeping down into the valley bringing a coldness to the villages below.
All slopes facing northward are covered in spruce trees with a distinct reddish bark. Other evergreens, particularly black pine firs (called Schwarzkiefer), accompany them and dominate the mountain slopes. Their bark is black with light cracks exposing the trunk. Because the soil is rocky and poor, with loose gravel and stones dotting the hillsides, it is unfit for cultivation. But the peasants have not let the land go to ill use, as many sheep and cattle graze along the wild grasses of the mountain slopes throughout Austria. On particularly sunny lower slopes stand larch trees, pines which shed their leaves in the winter.
Stone pines, with curvy branches like a candalabra, can be found farther up the mountains, above the spruce forests and clinging to even barren rocks. They never stand tall, but their smooth windblown wood is highly desired for use in wood carving (though sometimes faeries are said to protect them). Above the stone pines are only craggy rocks, hard-packed earth, and snow. The barren, windswept peaks are home to but a few mosses and lichen clinging to the stone. Still, the majestic views are known to occasionally attract wayward pilgrims and even local peasants, who march to the hilltops to light great bonfires on holidays such as Easter.
This page last modified on 9/14/97.
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