Snowshoeing towards the Klein Mythen

Our first attempt to recreate (part of) a fun blue-white hike on snowshoes. The weather forecast is dodgy for the afternoon, so we have something reasonably short planned: heading up to the Klein Mythen Vorgipfel on snowshoes and then doing the ridge to the Klein Mythen itself with crampons.

We start under clouds in Brunni and start our way up to Zwischenmythen. The snow is packed enough to just walk the first bit, but once we're in the woods we put on the snowshoes. Up, up we go, following the remains of a track, but still having to do a fair amount of trail making. Once past the alp at p1353 we lose the old track and it's trail breaking the whole way... slow going in the deep snow, but fun to go through the woods like that. Once we get to the cross at the pass we turn up the ridge and start to climb more steeply. Route finding is interesting here in the steep woods, and breaking the trail makes us quite slow, but up up we go until we emerge from the trees.

The last steeper bit up to the ridge has less snow, making for easier walking but feeling more precarious, so out come the ice axes. By the time we get to the ridge itself greg is ready to stop and doesn't have much interest in putting on the crampons and traversing the narrow ridge, so we stop for a break and to enjoy the fantastic views. The sun even comes out, yeah!

After the break Greg puts on crampons for the first, steeper, bit of the descent and gets to enjoy plunge stepping his way down. Andrea follows with the snowshoes. Once we're out of the steep bit we have a quick lunch break and then head down through the woods, more or less following our route up. Descending in the deep snow sure is easier than ascending was!

Back at the alp we realize that we've got a ton of time before the next bus, so we do an extended break before heading back down the way we came up. We've got time to have a cool drink before getting on the bus and starting back to Basel.

This was a nice trip! For planning future stuff: trail breaking in deep snow, particularly uphill, is slooooow. Greg needs to get used to doing slopes above 30% on snowshoes (with the crampons it was no problem). Doing a narrow snow covered ridge is going to be a psychological challenge. :-)

Track, obviously somewhat screwed up:

Snowshoeing in the Rätikon

The plan for the weekend was to do a snowshoe tour with the SAC up to the Tilisuna Hütte (not staffed at this time of year, so we would carry our food up with us), climb the Sulzfluh, and then find an interesting route down on the Austrian side on Sunday. The weather and avalanche situation changed that: the avalanche danger is already orange and with more snow expected on Saturday night, it's not going to get any better. We have a joking conversation on the train about having to spend a couple of days in the hut, but it's pretty clear that we're going to have to change plans.

The bus drops us in Rüti and we start walking up into the valley. It's foggy/cloudy, so we don't see a whole lot as we go, but we can maybe convince ourselves that it's getting lighter. At Äbi we put on the snowshoes and then continue along, heading off the well trampled path now, up the last bit to the Alpenrösli hotel (this is where we stayed during an SAC avalanche course some years ago). By this point it's clear that, even though the sun is currently shining, we're just going to be doing a daytrip, so we ditch the food and overnight gear at the hotel, have some hot drinks, and then set off up the valley with lighter packs.

It's great to be out in the sun and the mountains are just lovely, so this is very fun walking. We follow the valley until we can see where it starts to get steep at the end, stand around for a while enjoying the views and looking at the route we originally planned, and then turn back to the hotel. We get to see several small avalanches coming off the face of the Wiss Platte and Schijenflue, which is fun. By the time we're back the clouds have closed up again (bye bye sun). We have a quick snack (really, really good spice cake!) and then head back down the way we came.

It's too bad that the weather/avalanche situation cut this one short; it's a beautiful area and we'll have to go back. Still, it was great to be out and moving and to get at least a bit of time in the sun.


Rätikon

Snowshoeing in Graubunden: Peist to Küblis

Finally a good-weather weekend with a decent avalanche report; off to the mountains we went to do some snowshoeing!

The trains were as full as one would expect for a sunny winter Saturday morning, but we still had seats the whole way to our start point in Peist. No one else got off the (mostly still full) train there, so it's easy to guess what things must have been like in Arosa.

Of we started up, up through town and then out following the signs to Faninpass. After a bit on the road and then some snow (not as much as one might hope for; it's been sunny and we're on a South-facing slope) we reach a point where there's sufficient snow to mount the snow shoes. The on and up we go, enjoying the good views and the pretty direct path through the woods. There's an easy track to follow (yay! no tramping our own path this time!) up and up. At Zerfalta we see the first other people of the day: two snowshoers who have, unfortunately,  occupied the bench in the sun with a view. Ah well, we walk a few meters further and do a nice break sitting in the snow.

After the break we continue onwards and up, less steeply now, until we get to the top of the broad shoulder near Zaluenja. Onwards we continue, mostly contouring but climbing a bit, towards the Arflinafurgga. By this point we're following a trail left by a couple of skiers, so there is some snow-tramping to do and the going is a bit slower. From the pass we have a great view down to the Fideriser Heuberg (in fact, this pass was our intended destination on day 1 of that trip). But we aren't going down there! Theoretically at this point we have the option to continue up the ridge and do the last vertical meters up to to the Mattjisch Horn or to contour around the face of the peak to the Blackter Fürggli. Given that the second option has no trail and would require tramping the show the whole way, we opt to go up. The view from the peak make it well worth the bit of extra climbing. No big surprise there. :-)

view from the Mattjisch Horn

From the peak we continue a bit along the ridge and then turn down the face of the slope towards Strassberg. After a bit of descent we traverse along a well-tramped trail to the Skihaus Casanna, our destination for the evening. After checking in and a cool beverage we have a short rest, a good meal and then retire for the evening with memories of nice views and the sun on our faces.

On Sunday after a good breakfast we head up the valley in the cold (no sun down here yet!), through Strassberg, and then follow a ski-touring trail along the road, gently climbing towards the ridge while traversing under the Chistenstein. Once we hit the sun (after maybe 30 minutes of walking), it's another beautiful day. Onward we go, following one or another of the ski-touring trails, until we hit the ridge between the Chistenstein and the Drimarchenspitz. We take a break and enjoy the sun, views, and solitude (we haven't really seen anyone yet today). The last bit to the Chistenstein looks decidedly unfriendly (though we don't head all the way over, it looks like there's scrambling involved, which wouldn't be all that fun in snowshoes), so we opt to head directly down into the bowl towards Duranma. This is a descent in deep snow, big fun!. In the bowl we do a bit of tramping until we make it to the path up to the pass between the Chistenstein and the Glatt Bärgji. At the pass we head steeply down the other side and follow the remains of a ski trail, planning to descend between the two sets of cliffs. On the way down to this divide we pass two groups of ski-tourers, one coming up. After a minute we realize that the second group had actually turned around and was heading back up. Odd, then we realized that it got a bit steep in front of us. Thanks to the deep powdery snow this ended up being no problem (actually a lot of fun), but it wouldn't have been possible with either hard snow or shallow snow. We are, in any case, the first to have traversed this slope since the last time is snowed (well, maybe not, we crossed the remains of a small avalanche that may have wiped out some tracks). At the bottom of the slope we turn towards the house at 1901m in the Malanser Tarnuz. This time the bench isn't occupied, so we have another nice food break in the sun... what a life!

down from the pass

After a bit of a rest we continue on our way. Now we're contouring around the slope, following a track from some skiiers. The first bit is interesting because it leads across the remains of a couple of old (and small) avalanches. You get cool glimpses between the lumps of snow into the very blue spaces in between; nice stuff. On we go, starting to slowly descend. At some point we pick up the trail that leads us down, down, down, through the forest. This bottoms out at a point where we choose to take the road (with its switchbacks) instead of descending a couple of steep bits in the open (greg's not thrilled with the idea of doing steep bits on crappy snow). By the time the road is down to just a layer of ice we're at the switchback above Bonersch Wis and we switch back to the snow. Down a bit more until we run out of snow and walk the rest of the way through the woods down to Strahlegg. From there a path through the woods takes us to Küblis and the (very full) trains back home.

Another good (and long!) day.

Here's the track for the whole thing:

Stats:
Saturday 11.5km, 1214m up, 612m down.
Sunday 18.8km, 735m up, 1880m down.

Snowshoetrip to Vorder Stockealp

text and track to come.

Track:

On snowshoes from Gstaad via Lauenen to Lenk

just a reminder, text to come

Day 1:

Day 2:

St. Imier to Courtelary via the Chasseral

After a long run of weekends with absolutely crap weather, we finally got one where things were at least acceptable. The forecast called for an overcast morning clearing up in the afternoon. So off we went to do some snowshoeing in the Jura. We've started a trip here before (and ended one as well), but this is our first winter trip.

We start our way out of town and then head up, up, up for a while before needing to put on the snowshoes. Then it's up some more, cross a ski-slope (well a road that people are skiing down), lunch under a tree (still no sun) and then up, up some more until we hit the ridge. For the last bit we can smell the french fries cooking at the hotel up top, so there's nothing for it but to stop for some fries and beverages. After the nice break, we head along the ridge to the Chasseral before starting the long descent to Courtelary. At around 5pm the sun finally makes itself visible. Yay! a bit of sun!

It was great to get out and move our legs, even if the weather didn't play along.

finally, sun and blue sky

SAC Avalanche Course 2015

This year's avalanche course took place near the Furkapass.

Conditions were not optimal: the avalanche situation was orange for most of the Alps (the rest was red) and the weather on Saturday was not so good (lots of snow and otherwise overcast). The forecast for Sunday was ok though.

After the long trip to Realp, we stopped for a coffee while we waited for the guide and the instructors to meet us. After they showed up and a bit of intro, we headed off into the snow. The conditions were really not particularly good: you couldn't really see much of anything because of the snow. At the Hotel Galenstock we took a break that ended up being fairly long: the next stretch is up the slope, we're supposed to maintain 10m distance because of the avalanche danger, so this ends up taking a while (would have been great to see this procession in the sun: 50 people zig-zagging their way up the slope, stretched out over 500m). Once up top we follow the shelf down to the Hotel Tiefenbach, where we settle in and then do some prep for the next day.

through the snow

On Sunday morning the sky is blue, the weather is good, it's awesome! As we get ready to set out. Greg notices that one of his snowshoes has broken (they lasted 6+ years... not too bad), fortunately Manuela has some zip ties that we can use to hold it together, so Greg gets to continue. The day is spent tramping around and doing various exercises. The weather's great, the snow is nice, we have fun and learn some stuff. Finally we make our way back down to Realp to start the long ride back.

on the way to the Schafberg

Fasnacht weekend in the Kiental

We decide to flee Basel for the long Fasnacht weekend and head to the Kiental to get some snowshoeing in.

Saturday we take the train and bus to Kiental itself where we are picked up by the hotel taxi. Now it's down the valley, changing to their 4WD with snow chains at the last parking lot (FULL!) and then up the valley end to the Hotel Griesalp (we have started one tour and ended another here). We check-in, ditch some stuff, and then put on the snowshoes and head up, up through the woods. At Dünde Mittelberg we come out into the sun (ah! good weather!) and continue our way up the valley to Obere Dünden where we do a standing lunch (no good places to sit!). Now a final push up (it's warm! the legs are heavy after a lazy winter of bad weather!) to the Chistihubel, where we enjoy a break with great views. After our break we enjoy a nice descent back to the hotel. We find a couple of good, long, steep bits with deep snow that are just great. The snow conditions are excellent. Back at the hotel we enjoy a cool beverage (unfortunately indoors... the seats in the sun are all taken), shower, have a nap, do some wellness, and then have a nice meal before falling asleep.

descent towards Dünde Mittelberg

Sunday we cross the valley to the hotel at Golderli and then head up the valley to Bürgli. From here it's steeply up the side of the valley towards the Sefinenfurgge. Up, up, up we go in perfect weather. At some point we head off the well trodden track to take a break and enjoy the great views from a knob, but then it's up, up again for a while before again heading off the track to another knob where we do lunch and soak up the sun and views. After lunch we head back down. Conditions are, once again, pretty much ideal, so we have a great time descending. At Golderli we stop for a cool beverage in the sun and then head back to the hotel for more wellness (this time starting in one of their outdoor hot tubs) and another quiet evening.

break with views

Monday morning we load up our packs, check out, and then set out. Past Golderli and then up, up, up to the pass at Chanzel. Here along the ridge to the Aabeberg where we take a nice long break to enjoy the absolutely fantastic views. Back to Chanzel, then a fun descent (Greg being careful since he opted not to wear gaiters) past Mittelberg, past Schwand to the road along the valley floor. From here it's a long, nice walk along the valley floor, lunch in the sun at some alp along the way, until we descend to the Kiental on snow that's no longer quite so perfect then take off the snowshoes and do the last bit back along the road into town and the bus back home.

last meters to the Aabeberg

Snowshoeing from Madulain to Berguen

This was a weekend SAC snowshoeing tour lead by Rene B.

It's cloudy, but stable, when we start (after a long trip) in Madulain. The trail leads us up, up out of town, through the light woods, ever climbing until we get to the Alp Belvair. We take a quick break before heading up some more and then contouring around to the West. It's still overcast and the light isn't great for reading the landscape, so we don't necessarily take the most efficient route, but we eventually make it to the Es Cha Huette. The hut is quite nice and we enjoy a good evening there.

Sunday we continue along in the general direction of the summer trail to the Fuorcla Gualdauna. The weather has improved some, so we actually see bits of blue sky and a bit of sun. Nice! We enjoy the view from the pass for a bit before descending into the Albulatal. Now it's along the valley for a while. After a quick lunch break we pass the hospiz at Albulapass and continue until we hit the end and Crap Alp is in sight. The route along the road gets difficult due to snow drifts, so here we backtrack a bit and then head straight down (fun descent through deep snow!) to the valley floor and Crap Alp. Now through the woods, still lightly descending until Preda. Off with the snowshoes, onto the sleds and down the road to Bergün. We end up doing more walking with the sleds than we'd like at the beginning, but eventually we hit a real descent and get to really enjoy the rest of the way down.

From Bergün it's another long trip back home, but we've had a great time and our eyes are quite full.

Snowshoe Glacier Tour: Moosfluh -> Jungfraujoch in two days

This weekend we did a tour with the Basel SAC. The plan was to hike the length of the Grosser Aletschgletscher to the Konkordiahütte on Saturday and then to head through the Lötschenlücke and down into the Lötschental on Sunday.

On Saturday we started quite early: meeting some of our group at the SBB for a 6am train. After changing in Bern and Visp and taking the gondola up from Mörel, meeting the rest of our group near Riederalp, and then another gondola, we were on the Moosfluh between 9 and 9:15. The weather is somewhat variable: a fair amount of high cloud cover, but still some sun and good views. Snowshoes on, LVS's activated, the seven of us head down the steep side of the hill towards the glacier. Along the way down one of our number realizes that he's going to have fitness problems, so he turns back along with one other person. The remaining five of us rope in at the bottom of the hill and set out across the glacier.

There's a good amount of snowcover on the glacier and only the biggest crevasses are not covered, so the going is pretty good (this route would be somewhere between incredibly frustrating/dangerous and outright insane in the summer time).

We don't have to do too much weaving around and are able to just walk. We "enjoy" the usual pleasures of being roped in: different step lengths, different preferences for hiking speed, etc., but it's not overall too bad. The clouds start to close in as we hike, so the view is constantly changing.

After some hours of hiking we reach Konkordiaplatz and the beginning of the stairs up to the hut. We're now on familiar territory. We unrope ourselves, take off the snowshoes, and Andrea has time for a couple quick pictures before the clouds completely close in. Up the damn stairs we go (120m of vertical on stairs at the end of the day... joy) and then we settle in at the hut.

It's early season and the forecast isn't great, so we have the great pleasure of being in a hut that's less than 1/3 full. After a very pleasant evening and a really nice meal we make our plans for Sunday: given the crappy forecast and the moderately high avalanche risk, we're not going to head through the Lötschenlücke; instead we'll head up to the Jungfraujoch. Plans made, it's off to bed.

On Sunday we start pretty late: we get up shortly after 6 and are underway between 7:30 and 8:00. The weather is every bit as crappy as forecast: we're either in or just under the clouds and visibility is not great. Down the stairs, on with the snowshoes, rope in, and off we go. The route is nominally quite simple: straight ahead and up, but things are always more interesting when you can't see much more than 50m. It's "fun" to look ahead and see nothing.

 In order to keep some sense of orientation and avoid a couple of heavy crevasse areas (on the map at least), we keep the cliffs of the Trugberg visible to our right as we climb. After what is subjectively quite a while thing start to flatten out a bit.

At this point we just need to find the Jungfraujoch. There's not any particular risk of getting lost: worst case we just walk straight ahead until we find the cliffs of the Mönch and then turn left. Still, it's quite windy now and walking in these conditions isn't the most pleasurable thing, so we hope that won't be necessary. Not too much later (again, subjectively much longer), Andrea spots one of the posts marking the route between the Jungfraujoch and the Mönchsjochhütte. Yay! Now we just follow from one post to the next until the cliffs of the Jungfrau and the entrance into the tunnel complex appears before us. We unrope and take off the snowshoes as quickly as possible and then head inside. More fun with tourist madness, a quick lunch break, and then we start the very long (4.5 hour) trip home.

Track for day 1:

Track for day 2:

Two days over Thusis: Day two

We wake to lovely cloud-free blue skies. Excellent! After a nice breakfast we head to the train station and grab a bus to Ober Tschappina (stress on the first syllable! the bus driver will look at you funny if you put it elsewhere). It's a real pleasure to put on sunscreen in the bus. :-)

From the bus stop we follow a forest road off towards the Glaspass. After a few minutes of enjoying walking in the sun we head off on a nice path which leads us up through the woods towards the pass. At the pass we pick up a winter hiking path up towards the ridge. After a bit of this the snowshoe trail heads up and off to the left; we put on the snowshoes and follow. Some climbing later, we're up top and enjoying the views. After a couple pictures we continue along the ridge, head steeply down, and then through the rolling land to the saddle. The snow really makes the rolling, bumpy landscape fun. From the saddle we start climbing again, up, up to the Lüschgrat. It's a bit surprising to see the top of a lift from there, but we take a few steps back and enjoy the sun and views with a quick lunch break.
After lunch we head down again (ah, ridge hikes) until we reach the Bischolpass. Around the bump at p2056 and then up, up again to the Tguma. Another short break to eat a bit and enjoy the views and then we head down for real. Heading down through deep snow with snowshoes is fun. :-) After some descent we end up back on a prepared winter hiking path. We wend our way down, through a small ski area, until we end up just above Unter Tschappina. Another short break on a bench in the sun (we've got time to kill) and then down to the houses to see if we can find somewhere to sit and wait for the bus. Of course the only restaurant in town is closed for the winter, so we find a sunny spot in the sun and hang out until the bus comes and we start the long trip back to Basel.

Two days over Thusis: Day one

The forecast for Sunday and Monday was good, so we decided to skip Fasnacht this year and head out to the mountains to get some sun and move our legs.

We start by taking the gondola up from Chur to Brambüesch under a very disappointing blanket of clouds, have a coffee, and then head up the snowshoe trail that runs more or less parallel to the T-bar for a bit before dropping us at the edge of a ski slope above the tree line. Hrm. Up we go beside the slope until we reach the bottom of the chair lift at Hühnerköpfe. Here there's no snowshoe trail at all in evidence, so rather than continue to walk up through the ski area, we take the lift up (nice that the guy at the lift lets us do this!) to Furggabüel. From here we should theoretically have great views out over the high plain and over towards the Fulhorn, our planned destination for the day. Given the low clouds, we don't actually see much of anything. Crap.

Ah well, off we go, following the tracks of other snowshoers, past the Dreibündenstein and continuing South. After a while the clouds lift some and we can see the, still cloud covered, top of the Fulhorn. As we continue the sun comes out a bit in front of us (yay!), so we adjust our route to head for that (not much point heading up a mountain to not have any views). Upon reaching a sunny patch, we have a quick lunch, marvel at the number of people heading up to the Fulhorn despite the less-than-optimal conditions, and then turn to the West and head a bit across the rolling plain. After some nice descending through deep snow, we hit the Culm Ault and pick up the winter hiking path that takes us around the Tgom' Aulta (Graubunden place names can really sound like locations in a fantasy novel) and then to the ski area at Alp Raguta. We do another short sandwich break, watching the guys curling and in general enjoying the chaos, and then set off down the road. Unfortunately we listen to some spurious argument from Greg about not wanting to sled down wearing a backpack, so we doom ourselves to a long, winding route down. Ah well, we wanted to use our legs.

From Feldis we take the gondola down to Rhäzuns, where we get the bus to Thusis and our hotel. The Hotel Weiss Kreuz has a small wellness area downstairs (steam bath, sauna, something in between) which we take good advantage of before a pre-dinner rest and a good meal to wrap up the day. The weather may not have played along, but it was good to be out in the fresh air and moving our legs.

Along the ridge from Einsiedeln to Brunni

Finally a day with good weather! Sun! Snow! Whoot! Off to the mountains with us!

We're supposed to be doing a two-day SAC tour, but unfortunately the organizer is sick, so we have to make our own fun. No problem... we can do that.

The weather is ideal and the route is a simple one: up to the ridge from Einsiedeln and then along the ridge, up and down, up and down, until we hit the alp at Furggelen. After being mostly alone all day, we're scared off by the masses here, so we head down directly to Brunni rather than continuing the last bit up to the Furggelenstock.