We woke up to low cloud cover, but the promised rain was not apparent. We
settled on making a day of it by going up the mountain behind the apartment -
Blaser.
This would mean carrying the skis up to the snow line - somewhere above us -
along the Adlerweg path through the woods.
We picked up the skis from the car and left on the road climbing past the
apartment and up to the edge of the forest. We had recced the start the other
afternoon and knew that we should follow the road rather than the signed
start. were soon at the point where the track disappeared into the trees
A lot of the snow we had seen the other day had now vanished. We walked up the
forest track crossing sporadic patches of snow but nothing continuous so we
could put on the skis.
The track zigzagged up the woods then traversed along the top of a protected
area passing the Adlerblick (through the fence and down a bit).
We reached a junction of tracks and finally enough snow to put on the skis and
pad up the road. There was a faint hint of rain in the atmosphere, but nothing
permanent that required waterproofs
However the snow cover did not last long before we came out into a clearing with
lots of hoof tracks and very worn patches.
We skirted the worst bits and reached another track above the clearing. This
track was almost clear of snow and we had to walk carefully along a ribbon on
the edge.
We continued along the side of the track - there was a lot of use that had
cleared most of the snow off it. The summer path (which all the footprints
seemed to follow) left the gravel track and headed into the woods on some very
thin snow cover.
We followed this track as it twisted and turned through the trees until it came
out at a series of agricultural buildings.
The path we were on crossed this road and continued through the trees in much
the same way until we met a fence.
The fence was crossed where the snow had banked up enough for us to squeeze
through and over the barbed wire.
Across a further gravel track (although this was mostly covered) and onto a much
wider track leading upwards still in the trees, which fairly soon opened out
into a meadow. If this had not happened I suspect we would have turned around
here and made our way back down, however the more open slopes persuaded us to
continue.
Now we had a defined trace to follow ( numerous ski tracks and also snowshoes),
the only concern was that it did not match the GPS route we were vaguely
following, however following ready made tracks was better than forging one's
own.
We crossed the meadow in a climbing traverse passing several wooden huts on the
way, then we turned more up the slope and continued to climb through the
scattered trees.
We were following a vague ridge (although not on the top, but climbing up the
side) and this gave rise to numerous false summits, where you could just see the
next bump knowing it was not the top.
Around about 2000m we crossed into the cloud layer that had been hanging around
all day so far, and visibility got shortened, so we had to rely on following the
trace we were on where the only indication was faint disturbances in the snow
cover (and ski pole holes).
Frequent checking of the GPS helped keep us in the right direction, especially
as when we got higher the visibility decreased even further.
Now every bump looked like the last, and we could tell we were getting close as
the height measurement showed we were nearly there. The trace was very
indistinct now as it had been bashed by the wind with lots of sastrugi on the
slope.
A final climb onto a skyline ridge (wide) and we could make out the cross on the
top, and we crossed over the top in formation.
A sad irony was a panorama viewing station with 360 deg information and we
could see very little beyond the summit cone.
It was fairly sheltered on the top and we were able to pause for refreshments
and look around before preparing the skis for the descent. There were a few snow
flurries blowing around on the wind but nothing consistent.
Skiing off the top was difficult - very flat light and exceedingly complex
definition of what was cloud and what was snow. We dropped down a bit and then
checked we were on the right route, then repeated until we could see enough to
recognise where we were.
After following the ridge line down we emerged out of the cloud above the
meadow.
The slope down to this was open and steep enough to have fun descending.
Then along the less steep meadow leading to the track at the top of the path
through the woods (and barbed wire). Here we turned down the track (to avoid
having the play “chicken” in the woods) and was also where all the ski tracks
went down.
After a while down the track all the ski tracks dropped into a clearing where
the trees had been harvested and we followed. This gave some good skiing around
the tree stumps, however it ended before we reached the next gravel track and we
had to move into the woods.
The previous skiers had better snow cover and we ended up gingerly crossing
grass, moss, tree debris, etc. until we could drop onto the gravel track by the
agricultural buildings.
We omitted to go any further in the trees and followed the track as it took a
shallower descent, bringing us down to the second track that came from the
feeding meadow we had passed on the way up. At the junction I realised we could
have stayed on the top track and avoided the woods altogether and zigzagged down
it to this junction.
Knowing how bare the gravel track was from here it was time to take the skis
off and attach them to the packs. Down the gravel track initially it was quite
snowy then more bare across the top of the feeding meadow (which we avoided by
going past and back along a track below it).
Then we were on the ascent track once again going down, and occasional rain
drops made their way down to us, but nothing sustained.
This track returned through the woods with a few zigzags and steeper descents.
A convenient bench provided a chance to ease the burden of the heavy loads.
Finally we emerged onto the road into the village, and the apartment.
As we got back the rain began a little more defined for a while - we had
escaped most of it. The rain and sore shoulders prohibited any further stretching.
