Hochrindl horseshoe

A day of contrasts today. We started at the Hochrindl-Kegel car park (1745m) walked up along the Lattersteig 'Panoramaweg' in the hot sun to the Lattersteighöhe (2264m) and up and down across the ridge joining it to the Bretthöhe (2320m). Half way across the ridge, the white cloud that had been hovering over the summit of the Bretthöhe developed a bit and swelled to a grey swirling mass that seemingly defied the weather patterns and started to hail large quantities of small marbles at us. We hid behind the ridge sucking hailstones while it dithered around above us and eventually moved off to the south (see extra1). We then continued over the Bretthöhe and along the rolling green slopes to the Torer (2205m) and the Großer Speikkofel (2270m) before striking a line back to Hochrindl down the shoulder of the hill to the valley at 1401m. Half way down the weather came back with a vengeance and plastered us with stair rods of rain and hail. We got back drenched and with a very dead phone that somehow had filled with water.

To add to the day's excitement. Coming off the summit of Torer, we spotted a bright silver aircraft droning down the valley beside us. It gleamed in the sun and showed its twin tail fins as it banked. My immediately thought was that it was a WWII bomber remarkably like a US B24 Liberator. No sooner had I dismissed this identification as preposterous it was followed by a smaller twin fuselaged bomber gleaming even brighter in the sun (see distant extra 2). This could be nothing else than a P38 Lightning. Sure enough, I did some internet searching and there is a 'local' flight team and museum out of Salzburg who fly an ultra-polished P38 Lightning and a B25 Mitchell. The Flying Bulls. Not bad for a distant aircraft ID I thought!