Blog Posts in Category: Ski Touring

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…

With a poor weather forecast and a suboptimal avalanche forecast, Adam and I decided to head to Christlumlopf for a piste ski tour to get out, as it could easily be done in poor visibility and with a high avalanche forecast. The day turned out to be much nicer than we had anticipated, however there was still a lot of cloud around, so it probably wasn’t a bad decision. The way up was very pleasant, most of the way up was on a quiet Rodelbahn, with only a short section up the side of a piste, before we went into the woods for the final ascent. It wasn’t a long day out, we were at the summit in under two hours, but my legs certainly felt the lack of ski touring so far this season! The ski down was wonderful, on wide pistes, with good snow and not very many people!

I planned a weekend tour from Vent last year with the plan to ski from Vent to the Martin Busch Hütte, then over the Fineilspitze to the Schöne Aussicht and then over to the Hintereisferner and back down to Vent. The tour was initially supposed to have five people, but due to major trips being re-arranged due to being postponed, injuries and covid, it ended up just being me and Yasmin on the trip. It felt very strange getting up for breakfast at 7:30 with a plan of doing a 3500m peak, however our start time was dictated by the late breakfast and the hut, combined with the plan to ski down from the hut and catch the ski lift up to just below Teufelsjoch. The ski down to the lift in the morning was wonderful as it was down a freshly groomed piste, however touring skis are not ideal for a carving descent! Unfortunately the lift opened 30mins later than we thought it would, which led to a very cold 30mins watching the chairs being slowly put on the lift and the count down to the final chair. Thankfully. Read the full article…

I planned a weekend tour from Vent last year with the plan to ski from Vent to the Martin Busch Hütte, then over the Fineilspitze to the Schöne Aussicht and then over to the Hintereisferner and back down to Vent. The tour was initially supposed to have five people, but due to major trips being re-arranged due to being postponed, injuries and covid, it ended up just being me and Yasmin on the trip. The first day was a simple ski up the valley from Vent into the hut, we left Munich in plenty of time so we were in no great rush on the ski in, as we had plenty of time and our only plan for the afternoon was Apfelstrudel at the hut, and then crevasse rescue practice. The ski in was very straightforward and we only had to briefly take our skis off a few times. I have stayed at the Martin Busch Hütte a few times before, once as a child and once last year with Becky, and I remember the walk in going on with many “last corners”, and it certainly wasn’t different in Winter.. Read the full article…

Despite the week of warm weather ruining the quality of a lot of the snow, careful route selection was still required due to deep instabilities in the snowpack on certain aspects. This lead me to select Juifen as neither the route and the slopes above the route were overly steep. The weather as we set off from the car park was less ideal than I was hoping for, as it was snowing for most of the ascent with low cloud shrouding the mountains. Despite the warm weather we were still able to skin from the car park, all the way to 100m below the summit. The start of the route up the Vorstraße was easy and we were soon at the split between Juifen and Hochplatte. At this point most people carried on to the closer Hochplatte, but there were some other parties making the treck over towards Juifen. As we emerged from the forrest the views into the valley were lovely and we could certainly see signs of the instabilities on certain aspects due to the amount of avalanche debris. As we were ascending the weather was starting to. Read the full article…

After some careful route selection due to the avalanche conditions James and I settled on the Rietzer Grießkogel near Kühtai in Austria. This had the advantage that it was high, south facing and was mostly less than 30 degrees. The disadvantage of heading to a really popular tour, with a small car park was the starting time, and I was not particularly happy to be picking James up at 5:30 in the morning! The drive down was cold and it was still -10 degrees when we parked the car, thankfully as we were sorting out kit out the sun hit us and provided some much needed warmth. After the first 10m from the car we were able to put our skis on and then there was excellent snow cover the entire way. The ascent was very straightforward, the start up into the valley was a bit icy in the morning but we soon emerged into the wide open valley and began to be able to admire the views. Despite the air temperature staying cold, the sun and the ascent soon warmed us up and meant we were down to base. Read the full article…