After Ireland, I headed to Germany to spend the weekend catching up and skiing with my good friend Jörn, who moved back to his native Germany after a few years in Seattle, where he was living when we met. Jörn is perhaps the single most dedicated powderhound I know, who doesn’t blink at the prospect of an overnight 12 hour drive to reach the best snow. In the ~2 years since he moved back to Germany, I was able to visit once last June, where the summer conditions meant that I left my skis at home for our ascent of the Grossglockner, the tallest mountain in Austria. This time around, it was mid-April, prime for spring skiing, and we were going to get after it. This was my first time backcountry skiing in the Alps, and I was lucky to have Jörn as my guide - that man is constantly comparing different weather models, explaining to me the finer points of orographic lift as it relates to microscale precipitation total differences in the Eastern Alps, and generally obsessing over weather, terrain, and skiing.
As such, I told Jörn to exercise executive decisionmaking over the weekend plans. With Saturday looking like the best weather up high, he picked me up from the Munich airport late Friday night and we immediately embarked on a 3+ hour drive to the Pitztal (Pitze Valley), about 30km southeast of Innsbruck. This valley drains some of the biggest glaciers in the Ötztal Alps, and we spent the night at a pension up the valley for an early start Saturday morning.
We caught the very first train of the Pitztal Gletscherexpress, an underground funicular railway that whisks you up over 1,000 vertical meters in 7 minutes. We got on the train at the valley bottom, surrounded by grassy meadows, and stepped off the train into an alpine environment of rock and ice (albeit in the middle of a ski resort). Walking up the stairs at the top of the train station, the almost 10,000 foot elevation was immediately evident. We took one more gondola, and then headed out of the ski resort over the Mittelbergjoch (pass), dodging past hordes of other ski tourers. From the joch we were greeted with our first view of the massive Taschachferner (glacier), our first ski objective for the day.
The icefall on the Taschachferner looks impressive! We summited Petersenspitze, the gentle snowy summit, then skied the lookers’ right hand side of the glacier seen here.
We skied down the the glacier and put our skins on for our first climb towards Petersenspitze, our first summit for the day. We started off in the same direction as many parties headed towards Wildspitze, the tallest mountain in the area (and the second highest in Austria), but soon turned off the skin track as we headed towards our objective. Jörn had promised me first tracks on our descent, so when we eyed another party heading in the same direction, his pace quickened notably. Feeling the altitude, I was positively gassed by the time we sprinted to the summit of Ptersenspitze within 30 seconds of the other party. Jörn exchanged a few words with them in German, and then told me that we hadn’t needed to rush - they were headed in a different direction. We said goodbye to the other party and started our descent of the Taschachferner, which was very gentle up high and then rolled over at the icefall for over a thousand feet of very nicely pitched skiing through a few inches of fresh powder with stunning views. At the bottom of the steep pitch, we continued down the glacier to its toe, then put skins on for our next climb.
Another party returning from the Brochkogeljoch traverses underneath the north face of Hinterer Brochkogel.
Jörn heading into the steep part of the Taschachferner, with the Mittelbergjoch at middle-left.
The bottom of the glacier felt totally different from its upper slopes. Gone were the hordes of people and ski tracks - it felt as though we had the whole place to ourselves, with trackless faces in all directions. We started climbing up towards Pitztaler Urkund and the Urkundsattel (saddle) in the sun, with nice views over to the Ölgruben group. Above the saddle, we climbed onto the Sexegertenferner as we made our way towards our second goal for the day, the Hochvernagtwand. We hadn’t been able to find much information about this north face, but the one picture I had found online made it look like a nice ski, and we were both relieved that our eyeballs confirmed that assessment. As we neared the top of the ridge, however, and the glacier steepened, the skinning conditions became trickier. We switched to booting a hundred feet below the ridge crest, and wallowed our way up to the top, where we were rewarded with great views back to Wildspitze. We ripped skins and dropped in, and enjoyed great skiing back down to the saddle and below to the valley floor, where the slope flattened out the snow was fairly well cooked. With some concern about loose wet avalanches on the way out, we skied, pushed, and skated down the valley back to the car at the bottom terminal of the Gletscherexpress - a great day! Jörn finished the day off by ordering me a plate of Spätzle so large that I absolutely could not finish it, followed by an order of Kaiserschmarrn - he nearly had to roll me back to our pension.
Jörn on the skin track above the Urkundsattel, with the Ölgrubenspitze, the Bliggspitze, and the Eiskastenspitze in the distance.
Jörn making the first few turns on the Hochvernagtwand, with our skin track below.
Jörn skiing the Westlicher Taschachferner, with Pitztaler Urkund behind him.
We woke up on Sunday morning with big ambitions to ski Sexegertenzpitze, but by the time we finished breakfast, the sky was thoroughly cloudy, with poor visibility in the alpine. The scene stepping off the Gletscherexpress underscored this point, as we were confronted with dumping snow and a complete whiteout. We pivoted our plans to something a bit less committed: the Hangenderferner on the northern slopes of Linker Fernerkogel. The weather radar suggested the storm would pass pretty soon, so we headed out onto the vast glacial expanse of the Mittelbergferner in a total whiteout, quite disorienting. However, just as promised, within 10 minutes things began to clear up, and we even had a few moments of sunshine as we climbed up to the saddle east of the summit. However, with just a hundred or so meters to go, another squall rolled in, and the visibility dropped to zero. We didn’t feel comfortable venturing out onto the glacier without any visibility, so I took off my skis and booted up and down 50 feet repeatedly in order to stay warm when the wind picked up. After an hour or so, visibility improved again, and we skinned up to the summit of Linker Fernerkogel, with its big cross, and waited for a bit of sun before we dropped in. The new snow and wind had filled in all the old tracks, and once again we had the whole place to ourselves. As soon as the sun popped out, we dropped in, and enjoyed excellent skiing down the Hangenderferner before cutting hard left to avoid a cliff band and return to the Mittelbergferner. We opted to ski out the valley again, and had fun carving down the closed-but-groomed piste all the way to the car, 4,000 vertical feet below.
Jörn heading out onto the Mittelbergferner as the visibility begins to improve.
The wind picked up and another squall came through as we traversed just a hundred meters or so below the summit of Linker Fernerkogel.
Nice skiing down the Hangenderferner.
After skiing, we drove back through Innsbruck to Jörn’s apartment just outside of Salzburg, where we had a nice dinner with his wife and planned our escapades for the next day. With as much as 20cm of new snow arriving overnight, Jörn pitched me on heading to the Kitzsteinhorn ski resort for what he endearingly referred to as “freeriding,” which I gather is Euro-speak for chairlift accessed off-piste skiing with the occasional short hike or skin.
Schloß Staufeneck, an old castle in the foothills of the Alps not too far from Jörn’s home. All the villages and sights along the drives were preposterously scenic to my uncultured American eyes.
We headed out to catch the first chair, and Jörn battled through traffic as I enjoyed the sightseeing. Every single village that we drove through seemed so incredibly scenic to my American senses, and I told Jörn as much. I told him that the scenery back home seemed so ugly in comparison to the mountain towns, farms, and castles in the Alps. I was surprised to hear Jörn say that he had the same impression of the Cascades the first time he moved to Washington. To him, the scenery along the highways and backroads of the Cascades seemed strikingly wild and rugged. I guess being in a new place always feels special and exciting. We made to to Kitzsteinhorn without trouble, and a series of three gondolas whisked us 5,000 vertical feet up into the alpine. We made the most of the fresh snow and variable visibility, bouncing between patches of sun and patches of fog as we had a full day of skiing, and it was fun to get guided around Jörn’s home mountain.
Kitzsteinhorn in the early morning light as seen from our drive. If you look carefully you can make out the top terminal of the cable car on the righthand shoulder a bit below the summit.
Jörn skiing powder below the top lift, with Gaisstein in the background.
We mixed things up between the upper mountain and laps off of Kristallbahn. Here Jörn waited for some sun before dropping into a lap near Kleiner Schmiedinger.
More powder below Gaissten.
After last chair, we headed back home for showers and a nice final dinner in Salzburg, then I got up early the next morning to make my way back to Seattle.