The weather still had not turned and as we woke up to cloud filled skies, albeit with a promise that they would clear later in the day. In addition the avalanche risk after two days of unconsolidated snow was at a 3 .. we were not going to be doing anything rash. So we settled on a route we had done last year, up to the Lindauer hutte, with an additional aim to go on to the col and perhaps the peak behind the hut ... provided the cloud cleared and we could see where we were going.
The route followed the usual trail up to the top of the village, although the snow cover was now quite sparse.
The track to the meadows was icy but still covered, however the signs were that it would not really last another day.
Up at the meadows we could see the cloud down around the tops at the head of the valley, and we hoped they would start to lift.
We also took up the opportunity to mark the start of the Mittagspitze trail, as we intended this as a route once the weather cleared.
the trail to the hut is a wide "road" fully pisted for the toboggans, this was being done by snow mobile as we made our way up the initial meadow areas.
In fact this trail goes for quite a while through a number of open glades at a gentle gradient. There is just sufficient land marks to show you are making progress towards the head of the valley.
You know you are getting somewhere when you arrive at the first of the "uphill only" shortcuts .. these are made to separate those going up hill from those descending speeding around blind bends.
This is also where we start to enter the tree belt.
The track narrows to a single snowmobile width and winds much more through the trees next to the river.
This first "shortcut" leads into a second one, and eventually this comes out by a bridge and rejoins the main road/ track.
At this point we were passed by the first of the chasing group - it became apparent this route was a "bad day" option for a lot of people.
This gives onto the top meadow area, and was also where we started to ascend into the cloud.
Crossing this meadow was deceiving as the gradient remains constant with the short cut sections and you actually start to make progress against height gain.
The end of the meadow is also where the track makes a sharp right hand turn and disappears into the trees proper. Here the road part continues around in a series of zigzags making up the height, however the "short cut" concept continues to the left with a narrower track.
These second set of tracks are very much steeper than the first ones.
At the top of the first of these track was the warning sign to stop those descending from using them due to collisions.
True to this, suddenly a toboggan came out of the clouds with a rider struggling to control it, and ti took the whole width of the road for her to get past us without incident. Not really that the track was in a state to toboggan as the snow was soft from limited overnight refreeze.
the second and last of these steeper short cuts, and we were truly in the clouds with very limited visibility.
There was a very loud and seemingly close rumbling sound off to out left ... followed by a number of smaller ones - a huge avalanche had just dropped down one of the slopes at the head of the valley (beyond the track and the woods where we were, but very much close enough to validate our reading of the danger)
Given the density of the clouds we only saw the hut as we were within 50 m. of it, however it gave some welcome shelter from the elements and allowed us to get our breath back (as well as coffee and soup - bread noodle, bacon and broth)
Given we could not see very far, and with a second avalanche still ringing in our ears, there was not much point on continuing, up the valley, so time to return the way we had come.
Flat light and limited visibility, meant we kept to the larger track and followed the zigzags, even avoiding the objective danger of the walkers coming up.
Once out f the tree belt and into the meadows we finally came out below the clouds and could see further
By the time we were back at the village things were positively brighter, however the cloud was still covering the whole valley and especially the peaks.
Additionally the warm weather had melted a lot of the snow from the village fields and so we could not ski back to the apartment for the first time. Stopping at the car park and porting down the final section.
A good longer trip and would prepare us for tomorrow's attempt on Mittagspitze.
