My uncle and lucked out and got a few days free to head over to the Silvretta to get a few days of hut skiing in before my aunt and him fly back to Seattle on Monday. Here is a simplified trip report from a few great days of skiing!
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| Wait, where are we?? |
When we got to the lifts of Ischgl we got lucky and scored some tickets off some German that said they had partied too hard on their last day and wouldn't be using them. The half day ticket we would have bought was for 34 Euros and we bought ours of the college students for 20 Euros! After the lift ride we had gone from thick trees to well above the treeline but that didn't stop us from feeling like we were at a large train station getting off the upper lift...quite a few people and too many restaurants in every direction.
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| From the top of the Paulinkopf |
From the top of the Paulinkopf we could see are route that goes straight up and over the shoulder at the end of the valley straight ahead in this photo.
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| Shot of us at the top of the Paulinkopf and the start of the tour |
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| Starting the tour |
The start of the tour was only a small rise but we did cross from Austria into Switzerland at the top of the ridge which was pretty cool.
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| A shot with the border sign |
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| The Heidelberger Hutte |
This is our first view of the Heidelberger Hutte as we came around the corner from the Paulinkopf...pretty nice hut!
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| Scott at the front door |
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| Leaving the Heidelberg hutte |
The next morning we skinned up the main valley eventually taking a side valley heading toward the Kronnenjoch on our way to the Jamtal hutte.
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| The Breite Kronne |
The Breite Kronne looms on the on the left as you make your way to the joch and seems to be the most popular summit. You can't ski from the top but the view after a short walk is pretty nice!
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| Us on the Breite Kronne |
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| Lunch break |
After walking down from the Breite Kronne we found some nice rocks to sit on and enjoy the lunch we had prepared at the Heidelberger hutte in the morning. It was warm enough for us to take off the boots and lounge in the sun airing out the socks.
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| Kronne |
After eating lunch we made our way along the ridge at first thinking we were going to head straight down to the Jamtal hutte but some tracks heading up the Kronne gave us hope of another climb before our descent. After looking at it for a while we both decided it looked like a clear path so we started to skin to the base of the peak.
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| The couloir |
From the ridge we took our skis off and started booting up the couloir before gain another small shoulder and heading up another small chute directly up the front face. At the top of this chute and after a rock traverse we got stuck and with too much loose rock to be down safely we made out way back down.
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| Little rock climbing! |
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| Nice hanging glacier across from the Kronne |
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| The Jamtal hutte |
The Jamtal came soon enough as we made our way down the valley. I was aware that this hut was large but I had no idea it was going to be this big! It looks more like a nice hotel dropped in the mountains! As we made our way to the ski room to drop our stuff it was clear that there were quite a few people at this hut!After switching into our hut shoes we made our way to check into our room which I quickly found out we didn't have. The hut host had misunderstood my email saying that I would need to cancel one night and keep the other and had actually cancelled both of our night.
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| Have you seen more touring setups! |
My uncle and I were both pretty scared this would be our last night of the tour. A few minutes of both of us sitting wondering what was going to happen later and one of the hut keepers pulled us aside and walked us into the "conference room". Once in the conference room he gave us two mattresses and told us when dinner would be. We were perfectly fine with being in the spacious conference room with only four other people!
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| Next morning skinning |
The next morning we woke up to the normal breakfast and quickly made our way to the gear room to get our boots and skis on. We quickly made our way up the valley to the days goal, the Dreilander Spitz. Once we got a ways from the hut the valleys opened up all around us showing us so much ski terrain in all directions that we both couldn't stop taking pictures.
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| The Jamspitze is the left one |
The valley that we would head up presented itself as obvious today but thinking about being here in a whiteout would give me shivers. In this picture the valley heading to the right is the one we took.
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| Ochsenscharte |
At the top of the Ochsenscharte we stopped for a snack and too snap some pictures. The top of this pass isn't a countries border but you are going between the states of Tirol and into the Vor-Arlberg. This is also the ridge you would cross over if you were to head down to the Weisbadner hutte. At the top of the Ochsenscharte we could see that there was a line to get to the top of the Dreilander Spitze so we opted to get some good skiing in instead!
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| Low angle glacier skiing! |
I think some of the best turns of the trip were heading down the glacier below the Ochsenscharte and around the crevasses back to the valley. Once at the valley floor again we put the skins back on and made our way back up but this time headed toward the two Jamstpitzes.
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| Too many skiers! |
As we started up the first major rise up to the Vor Jamspitze we started to see heads appear heading in our direction. It started as 4 and then 7 and then 10 skiers heading down the slope above us! In the end I counted 17 people all skiing the same slope...incredible!
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| The Vor Jamspitze |
After we had made it to the joch between the Vor and Hinter Jamspitze I quickly spotted a line I had to ski on the Vor Jamspitze. Onc emy uncle had joined me between the peaks we decided that he would head to the Hinter Jam and I would ski the line I wanted to on the Vor. In this photo the line is in the large chute with the most snow. It was quite a ski and I even got a very loud, "supa" from a group touring below me, good times!
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| Skinning up towards the Gem Spitz |
After a great ski off the Jam Joch we made our way to the flank of the Gem Spitz and made nice turns down to the base of protruding ridge of the Gem Spitze and started skinning from there up the wide open glacier. Its funny that on the whole tour we never had to break trail at any point...
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| Looking down |
The down side of not making a skin track is that once we got to the top of the joch between the us and the Gem Spitz we could see that like many other peaks this one had a large line to the top so we forgo this summit and went to a joch instead giving us a view down another valley which was well worth it.
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| Gem Spitz is the highest left peak |
After a quick snack and drink we skied great turns all the way to the hutte were we then had a bier and enjoyed the sun deck before heading inside for a nap.
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| The difference between Sat and Sun.. |
When we got back to the gear room it was clear that touring weekdays is the best way to do a trip like this. Check out the first picture of the gear room when we arrived on Saturday and then scroll back to this one...ya!
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| My pack |
This is the size of the pack I had for the whole trip! I love hut skiing!
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| The road |
After eating breakfast we packed up the gear, paid the bill, and got on the cat track down the valley to Galtur where I had parked my car. The track requires some pushing but we still made it out in 45 minutes.
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| Last shot! |
This was a super fun trip that I would be happy to go on again and again. It would be impossible to ski all the lines in a season let alone a weekend. This was the best ski trip of my year and couldn't be more happy to share it with my uncle. I think this made up for his last trip in 2006 when we had to head to Hintertux to find enough snow to ski in January!
