Blog Posts in Category: Ski Touring

After not getting to an actual summit yesterday due to the quantity of fresh snow no the ridge, I wanted to ensure that Katherine actually ski toured to her first proper summit today. I decided that with the snow conditions at the moment our best bet was to head back to the Wetterkreuzkogel, which I first did with Adam on a week long ski touring trip in 2019. We decided to go for an early start as some of the forecasts suggested that bad weather would come in around lunchtime, and it meant that the route would be quieter. It was another very cold morning, my car said -15 degrees as we were driving to the car park, and I think it was about -13 degrees where we parked. We took the phrase “be bold, start cold” to heart and were absolutely frozen as we left the car, but soon our cores warmed up as we climbed abruptly from the car up the twisty track in the forest, and eventually my fingers even warmed up. We emerged from the woods as the high cloud in the sky was being lit. Read the full article…

We had two nights booked in the Jamtalhütte for some ski mountaineering and in the week running up to the trip, the weather could not make its mind up as to if the weekend would have excellent weather or awful, what was however certain was that the day we approached the hut would be spectacular. We set off from Munich via train in the morning and after a very smooth train journey, and a slightly less smooth bus journey which made me feel rather green, we arrived in Galtür in time for some bakery lunch prior to setting off for the hut. The skin up to the hut was beautiful, with snow from the village, a good track and wonderful scenery. It wasn’t long after we left Galtür that we started to feel like we were in the big mountains and fairly remote. After a 10km skin in we arrived at the hut, where I was certainly feeling the lack of exercise from the previous few months! We didn’t really have time to head out for a tour, and by this point the cloud had started to come in. We. Read the full article…

With Becky’s progression with skiing I felt like it was time for her to attempt her first proper ski tour. The challenge was to find a route which felt like a proper ski tour, with a wonderful view from the top, but which actually did not have too much ascent, or more to the point, off piste descent. After looking through multiple guidebooks I eventually settled on the Kleiner Gamstein, from the Hoch Fügen car park, as it was a significant viewpoint, with an approach along a piested xc route before the final ascent. It was a lovely way up with fantastic views in great snow conditions. I had expected good views, but it is safe to say that I hadn’t expected the views from the summit to be quite as good as they were. Despite the wall to wall sunshine the summit was fairly cold, so after a few photos and forcing our lunch down quickly we set off on the descent. The descent took us quite a while, as unsurprisingly Becky found her first proper off piste descent pretty difficult. Nonetheless, we were back at the car in. Read the full article…

This winter has not been a good winter for ski touring, with a distinct lack of precipitation and plenty of warm days, so running up to this weekend I was unsure if we would actually be able to make the tour. However thankfully there was some fresh snow in the last few weeks, and the weekend ended up having a good, if warm, forecast. Our plan for the weekend was to stay in the Franz-Senn-Hütte for two nights, with the primary objective being the Ruderhofspitze, a tall but relatively isolated peak, with a stunning snow arête up to the summit from the ski depot, so it looked like an excellent mountaineering objective. We headed down to the Stubaital early on Friday morning, with the thought that we would get to the hut and then go up and do something relatively short, however this was not to be as by the time we got to the hut it was really warm in the afternoon sun and we all needed to cool off after the ascent in the sun! The next morning we got up for first breakfast and were leaving the. Read the full article…

It seemed so simple when we came up with the idea, arrive at the Christlum ski area as it opened, skin up to the top, ski back down and get back to work in time for the afternoon, however it was only when I looked at how long the route took Adam and me a few weeks ago, that I realised this may have been a tad ambitious. I was keen to get out with Becky, as last weekend she had bought ski touring skis and we didn’t have a chance to use them, and this weekend the weather looks fairly snowy. So we came up with the above plan, which turned out to be a bit overambitious for a first ski tour, as there was no time at the top to chill out and eat some food before getting back down! The skin up the Rodelbahn was a great way to warm up and for Becky to get into the rhythm of ski touring, so we gently snaked our way up through the forrest, eventually appearing at the mid mountain and emerging from the forrest. Here we briefly skinned. Read the full article…

I certainly wasn’t convinced at the idea of a pre work ski tour when my alarm went off at 04:50, however I dragged myself out of bed and completed the 1h drive to the parking for Hirschberg. After getting fairly cold gearing up at the car, we soon headed off up the initial section of piste. I remember this initial section being brutal when I walked it, and it certainly felt just as brutal on skis in the dawn light. Eventually we made it to the top of the piste, and the end of the ski resort where we headed off into the forrest. Here it was much easier going and the track was wide enough to skin two abreast so it was fairly social. We followed the skin tracks off the main track and more towards the descent, which probably made progress slower, but it certainly made the ascent more beautiful. As we broke out of the woods the sun was just starting to hit the slopes as we emerged into the warm sunlight and glowing peaks. A few steep turns later and we were at the huts before. Read the full article…