Gabela in Garmisch

Last week I got the chance to hang out with Gabela, a good friend from colorado that finally made it out to Europe. We had a great time hanging out and Garmisch and even got to climb the Alpspitze and Zugspitze as well as some fun sport routes in Oberammergau. Here are some pictures from her visit!
-Owen

Catching up with me!

Since Slovenia I haven't written a single blog post...my bad. I will do my best to catch up with everything right now.

After Slovenia I continued kayaking the Loisach almost everyday with one small break to check out a new river, Breitach in the Allgau which ended up being a very good time and worthy of another run when the water levels get back up again. Here's a small edit from that trip...

After Breitach the Loisach and the area all around Garmisch flooded so the Upper Loisach starting in Ehrwald was running in full force so we hit that up for two runs. Here's an edit with the flows at around 150. The last drop is the highlight of the run but rolling to get under bridges will not be forgotten.

After the flooding the weather cleared up and we had an awesome Saturday at My friend Jeremy's wedding in which I was the best man. The weather was about as good as it could get with some sun and some rain! Good times.

This last weekend I headed over to the Sanna, a river that I've been thinking of paddling for a while but have been to lazy or scared to try for a while. It turned out to be a fun run with some big holes. It was a different type of kayaking than I'm use to with a larger volume of water and large wave trains but fun nevertheless. I didn't have my go pro for this one but did get a shot of Quirin styling a hard rapid about a km from the Sanna put it. Pretty sick! Turn your head, sorry!

Now I'm back at home after just losing my license for the month because of a (hefty!) speeding ticket but hoping to be heading back to Slovenia with some friends for more good times this weekend if I can get the time off! We will see what happens but either way it will lead to paddling.
-Owen

Slovenia kayaking trip

My dad and I just got back from a week of kayaking on the Soca river in Slovenia. It was a great trip with very good weather. Here are a few pictures and the little edit I made with the gopro footage I had. Enjoy!
-Owen

Next time I will bring my fly fishing stuff!

The pass into Slovenia from Austria with WW1 buildings

Clear blue water

Great scenery on the Soca

Alpspitze Via Schöngänge

Here are a few pictures of going up the Alpspitze a few weeks ago with Carina. Good times but I was completely exhausted! The ski down was as bad as I have ever skied this mountain...horrible.

Silvretta hut trip with Scott

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!

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.

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.

Shot of us at the top of the Paulinkopf and the start of the tour

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.

A shot with the border sign

The Heidelberger Hutte

 This is our first view of the Heidelberger  Hutte as we came around the corner from the Paulinkopf...pretty nice hut!

Scott at the front door

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.

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!

Us on the Breite Kronne

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.

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.

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.

Little rock climbing!

Nice hanging glacier across from the Kronne

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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...

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.

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.

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!

My pack

 This is the size of the pack I had for the whole trip! I love hut skiing!

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.

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!

Wank ski tour

Got out of the house yesterday to do a tour up to the top of the Wank with my friend, Micheal who's going to school in Innsbruck. After waiting in the parking lot because he was stuck in the traffic from Munich we starting making our way up  the skin track. The skin track begins winding it's way up to the top through thick trees on the normal hiking trail used in summer. Some parts of the skin track were a bit steep but not bad at all after I put the ski crampons on for a little extra grip on the ice. Micheal begin having problems with his right heel lift about half way up the tour but he toughed it out even though he had to put his heel lift back up every 20 steps.
After a quick meal on the top we made out way out far left of the top and begin skiing pretty deep snow down to the track that brings you all the way around the bottom of the mountain and back to the car. The snow was surprisingly good but the run was a little short for me to want to do a repeat of this tour.
-Owen

Schöngänge and ski

Just had an eventful climb and ski up to the Bernedein Kopf next to the Alpspitze yesterday in possibly the worst conditions ever but hey, I got through it!

Schöngänge in summer

I started up the Alpspitze bahn on either the first or the second bahn, I couldn't tell which one as I was  concentrating on riding my bike up the icy road with my skis strapped to my pack. When I got on the tram there was a guide from the guiding service in town who was also heading up the Schongange so I guessed it would be in shape if there was a guide also headed on the same route. When I reached the place to put skins on a large sluff came of the ledges to our right and gave me slight pause. The route was in good condition and none of the funnels were above the route so I carried on and was soon making switchbacks up the increasingly icy slope. The sun from a few days earlier had made the base on this slope very hard and with 4 inches of sugar on top of that skinning was not easy and planting edges in was necessary to carry on upwards.

Looking back down from the top

After 20 minutes I had reached the start of the kletterstieg, strapped my skis on my pack, and was off around 50 meters behind the guide I had met on the tram. The crux of the whole route is 20 meters after putting skis on the pack and involves a little bit of ice right next to the kletterstieg. I didn't need to put crampons on due to easy rock to stem on but if it were filled in crampons would be nice. After moving through this tight section it is easy moving as you hug the rock to your right and enjoy the abundance of air on your left. Around 40 meters after making it through the ice I looked back to see a larger size sluff go right through that section making me think more about hauling as in the wide open parts and hugging the rock close when I could. The rest of the route was uneventful and soon enough I stumbled to the top not even thinking about following the guide who had almost disappeared into the whiteout heading to the Alpspitze. I decided to head the opposite direction down to the normal skin track and then skin to the Stuiben Hutte to sit and drink a beer before heading back out to the resort.
It was a day...whether it was good or bad I don't know.
-Owen