The Enzian belongs to the gentian family (Gentianaceae). This one shows the Clusius-Enzian which can be found up to 2800 m in limestone areas. The deep blue makes it a special flower. It is protected by law, but can be found in many places in the Alps.
Enzian
I have been busy with too many things, so I apologize: no techy blog post this weekend. But what I can share is a unique wonder of nature encountered during a bike trip today at the end of the Klöntalsee:
Trees growing on a tree (click to enlarge)
During cold winters the Lake Lauerz gets covered with ice. And if it is cold enough for a few weeks it gets enough ice to have it completely covered more than 15 cm of ice. That’s the time of the year to enjoy a walk or to play ice hokey:
Schwanau mit Mythen
Winter is tough in Switzerland. What could be better than to escape the ground fog and go up the sunny side?
View from Obhäg (Click to enlarge)
View from the Obhäg towards the central Switzerland Alps.
Happy Escaping 🙂
Cold and humid air are forming beautiful sculptures these days. The image shows the leaves of a Japanese Umbrella-Pine (Sciadopitys):
Frosted Sciadopitys Leaves
Happy Frosting 🙂
A benefit getting up early on a Sunday morning is the chance to watch a beautiful sunrise:
Red Morning
Happy Sunday 🙂
Mother nature offered an interesting puzzle this morning: a sunrise with beautiful light sculptures. But where is the sun?
Morning sunlight without the Sun?
The Carlina Aucalis (we call it locally the “Silberdistel”) is native to alpine regions in central Europe. When all the other flowers disappear in fall time, the Silberdistel is worth a stop while hiking in higher alpine regions.
White Silberdistel
Achenkirch is a municipality in the Schwaz district in the Austrian state of Tyrol. Located nearby on a hill is the “Annakirchl”:
Annakirchl in Achenkirch
The Haggenegg is a summit at 1414 m between Schwyz and Alpthal. The summit played an important role during the “Marchenstreit“: a border conflict starting around the year 1100 between Schwyz and the Einsiedeln Abbey.
Sunrise from the Haggenegg
The Lilium Martagon (Turk’s Cap Lily, Lily of Istanbul, Sultan Lily or Dragon Lily.) grows up to 2 meters and is one of the most beautiful lily flower in my area. I can find it mostly around 1000-1200 m in the nearby Alps, e.g. on the Rigi mountain range.
Lilium Martagon
With the beautiful Alps just outside the door step, I hiked up to the Rigi Hochflue on Sunday, so I can share pictures of alpine flowers at 1698 m (click to enlarge):
The Seefelder Spitze is a mountain peak near Seefeld (Tyrol) at 2220 meters high. That peak was the goal of a hiking tour in the Karwendel Alps:
Just below the Seefelder Spitze, still lots of snow up there
The Primula is a flowers in my region which announces the spring time. Captured that beautiful one today with a bug on it 🙂
Primula with Bug
It has been extremely busy weeks, and I’m my technical blog article output currently is very low. So I thought I could post two pictures of blooming Crocus in my backyard instead. I admit: that takes less time than writing up a 2000 words geeky technology article. And I know that some of you might say “Flower pictures do not count!”. But hey, I say that the Crocus is a very beautiful flower, and in many aspects nature is ahead of technology:
Crocus
It has been a cold night with snowfall mostly in the higher mountains. For a very short time window opened up in the sky for the raising sun:
Winter Sunrise Reflections
It created nice reflections the water and ice on the ground: like fire on ice.
The following panorama picture is taken near the same spot as above in the “Sägel” nature preservation area, towards the Mythen peaks in the East:
Overnight the higher areas received lots of snow, while it was raining in the lower areas, creating a ‘blue, white and green painting’. A new rain and snow weather front is coming, but there was a small blue sky window in the morning. With the sun coming up in my back, I captured the view towards the snow-covered Rigi mountain range:
Rigi, Snow and Green (click to enlarge)
Happy Snowing 🙂
The Föhn Wind kept me up tonight: it was pretty strong with 90-110 km/h browsing through the central valleys of Switzerland. An amazing sunrise with colors I have rarely seen compensated for that restless night with a natural painting:
Morning Clouds with Föhn Wind
The clouds are arranged in lines: this because the Föhn Wind is building ‘standing wind waves over the mountains: if the wind goes up it, water condensate and builds the cloud lines.
Happy Föhning 🙂
Waiting in the cold in the early morning can have an aesthetic aspect:
Ice Flowers
When ice builds beautiful structures on glass we call it ‘Eis Blume‘ (‘Ice Flowers’). In the past this happened on the windows in unheated buildings. These days it is a rare species with all the heated building. This one is more like snow flakes building up nice structures. With the sun coming up in the background their beauty will be gone very soon….
Happy Icing .-)
The Winter Solstice day ended with a spectacular sunset sky:
Red Evening Sky
Happy Solsticing 🙂
