Europe 2012, Part 7

Day 17

Landeck to Stams

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landeck)

(http://www.tyrol.tl/en/tyrols-holiday-areas/innsbruck-and-surroundings/stams.html)

No Rush today. Said goodbye to Martin and Blanka, hoped I might catch up with them in Innsbruck.
 Had an easy breakfast, did a little grocery shopping for my lunch, got all the gear packed up and started heading out of Landeck.

 Landeck sits right on the Inn River. Very popular location for river sports. The high alpine snow pack, finally starting to melt even though it was already August.

Unfortunately for a  lone local kayaker it turned out to be not such a great day. As I headed out of town, I noticed firefighters and police stationed on the bridges and river banks.
Having been a certified swift water rescue technician in another life, looking at how fast the river was  flowing, it was pretty obvious if they didn't get him quickly it was going to be tough.

 I rode along the river for another 15 km with this helicopter searching up and down the river. Finally he stopped at this one point, seemed to be the end of the search as he landed and was joined by ground crews. Just shows how fast you can be swept away.
Pretty impressive job by all the crews getting out and covering almost 20km of river bank.

One of the beautiful watering holes on route.

Crossing over the Inn I got to hang out and watch one of the many rafting companies heading down the river.

My lunch stop for the day. Found a great bend in the river with these awesome chairs set up.

I had originally thought that I would make it into Innsbruck, not to be and I was happy for it.
I pulled into Stams.

Add(Wikipedia)Stams is a municipality in the Imst district and is located 18.50 km east of Imst, 7 km west of Telfs and 46 km west of Innsbruck on the southern shore of the Inn River. The village contains a Cistercian monastery (Stift Stams), founded in 1273, and several schools, including the Schigymnasium Stams (Stams ski school), the Paedagogische Hochschule and the Meinhardinum Stams. Stams has 1300 inhabitants who are living in different parts of the village - called Thannrain, Windfang, Staudach, Haslach, Maehmoos und Haulandcaption

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Further up the hill from the monastery I booked into an amazing campground with the most incredible views.

Just over on the east side of the campground property sits the Brunnentalschanzen at Stams, the most important summer training center for Austria's professional ski jumpers. The construction works on the plastic covered hills started in 1988. The works were finished in 1990, including a ski-lift and an artificial snow-making system.  

Excuse all of the sunset photos, it was spectacular watching the mountains changing shape and colour as the shadows rolled through.