A clear morning but with forecast of showers in the afternoon, as well as the
clocks changing we opted for a shorter day. The idea was to ride the cable car
at Tulfes until the pistes started, then climb up the pistes until we could take
the path to the Glungezer hutte and the summit. then return the same way as far
as we could.
We parked in the car park at the valley station - it being Sunday and clocks
going forward, there were not many people around. We bought a 3 ride ticket -
enough to get us to the top station then back down the first stage as there was
no snow on the lower slopes. We boarded the gondola and set off up the
mountain in bright sunshine.
At the middle station we transferred to the next lift - a combined gondola and
chair, there were several parties already walking up the side of the piste here,
but we had deemed it too much against 4 extra euros for the additional ride.
At the top station on look outside showed the weather had turned and it was
howling a gale and blowing snow around. Back inside to put the skins on and get
buttoned up then out into the weather and climbing up piste #2.
The piste started off curving around the ridge up to Schartenkogel and climbed
up into a huge bowl with a mixture of pistes. The foreshortening of the piste
map indicated that the route would go up diagonally across from us, however in
reality it was just below the col where the piste comes down from the
Schartenkogel lift station.
In hindsight it would have been better to go up the track on the ridge up to
that (away from the pistes) however we cut over the bowl to go up piste #5 - a
very steep rise that brough us near the col and we could see the track heading
away and up to the peak. As we climbed the wind died down (or we were sheltered)
and it got warmer.
The track up to the Glungezer (and associated hut) followed below a vague ridge
(in summer it has a via ferrata up it).
The track climbed up in a series of bowls with the ascent track having been
wiped out by descent tracks and very smooth in places leading to slipping
consternation.
We followed a line of electricity cables and pylons, I suspect they were an old
lift system, until we curved away from it into a bowl below the peak. Around now
the wind was back with occasional snow flurries
Up the bowl, with more icy patches until we were just below the crest. The hutte
was to the left in a col and the path led right to the cross on top. We headed
across to the top - again fighting the icy patches where the descenders had
scraped the top layers off. the higher we got the more windy, with some painful
sleet. Bryon took over the lead as he was going well on the icy sections, and
making better choices.
The snow was sugary where it had been piled up after the scraping, so in
combination with the hard pack icy sections and the sugary slippy bits it was a
challenge.
At the top we sheltered in a gully below the summit and cross before venturing
up on foot for the obligatory photos. This was actually the Sonnenspitze, the
Glungezer was beyond the hutte, but this is the ski peak.
Then a rapid change over to downhill mode and we left to go back to the path
junction. This was the first 3-layer day of the trip.
Looking down to the hutte there was a dodgy path over a ridge, so we left it to
continue back down.
the snow was like Chamonix off-piste ... almost a piste and loaded with moguls.
However not difficult to ski.
We took each bowl down in turn ... almost the same ... narrow entry point,
traversing around then down into the bowl bottom.
Where we re-joined the ski area we sheltered in the lee of a building to take on
board food and water, as it was not the place to hang around on the top.
Then it was into full piste descent mode.. although we traversed around piste #6
rather than the way we had come up, then followed #2 back to the top station ,
and on down. The snow was very hard (almost icy) on the piste
As we dropped past the top station we had started at around 2000m the snow
got more damp and sugary making for heavy turns but the steepness of the slope
helped on the effort. This would have been hard work skinning up if we had not
taken the easy way on this section.
At the mid station we had to jump back into the gondola for the last part of the
descent, and back to the van.
We had again enjoyed a good day and managed a route on a day that promised worse. The heavy rain did arrive a little later and we wait for the bad weather forecast to set in tomorrow.
