A good nights sleep and the morning brought clear skies and a sharp frost.
Breakfast was later than we would have liked and we rushed out eager to get to the hill before the larger pack of day tourers taking advantage of the great conditions.
We were not the first but most seemed to be going up the valley, so we set off in a smaller group to the bottom of the local ski piste (closed for the season but still recognisable).
Up the piste, tracking a couple of other parties, we must be getting fitter as they were still not gaining as we came up tot eh top of the piste and picked up more people who had bypassed this section and parked in a lay-by by the top of the lift.
Across into the woods - here we followed the large winter wanderweg trail ... there was a large sign imploring us to keep to the path.
This trail meandered through the woods and after several checking of the map and GPS we were roughly going in the right direction.
We broke out of the woods in the right place ... so the track was correct.
Now we could see the top - in the distance - but not the whole climb ... we would find a dip before the peak concealing the sting in the tail.
First the steep section up to the skyline and some huts.
still climbing for the huts ... but maintaining position against the growing number of parties on the trail.
Past the huts we saw the bowl open up and the summit cone.
The main tracks lead to the right hand ridge and up that, although there was a minor set going to the left.
Tracking up tot he summit ridge on the right of the summit ... the mix of ski, skinning, and snowshoe tracks coalesced on the ridge to a narrow steep turns, quiet slippy.
At this point most of the skinning tracks lead off across the slope ...maybe a better option than continuing up the snowshoe trails to the top.
This rising traverse on unconsolidated snow, did raise the conciousness slightly especially the parts where the track slipped underfoot ...
Slowly and steadily we traversed across to the other ridge and easily up to the summit. Here there was an ever growing group of people entertained by waves of parapentes
The weather was fantastic, and not cold, great for enjoying the view and also taking in the entertainment.
Then we got buzzed by a couple of gliders, who seemed to be playing chicken with the parapentes.
The gliders kept coming back for more.
Everyone (well at least those on skis) was waiting for when they judged the optimum time to leave and get the most out of the snow...
We set off after the group we had followed up ... it was slightly icy and hard down the initial ridge ... we went down the final way up, but dropped to the col where there looked to be a good slope going down. the face looked slightly too steep, and we avoided the others heading that way.
Our only obstacle was the lines of showshoers going up.
The col proved a good decision - the drop iff was superb powder
This great powder continued as we dropped over to the huts we passed on the way up and then continued down the first open slopes back to the forest ... all in good quality powder (although it was getting heavier as we got to the forest - or was that our legs getting tired)
A race through the forest on the track, down the ski slope at a high rate of knots, and we were relaxing in the sun by the van in the car park.
Even time to entertain the locals, before going back to the hostel ... Chicken curry (or spiced anyway), soup salad and cake... early to bed very happy with a great day.
Just time to send an email to Chris with the guy on the public band radio from the top.
