TBT: Silvretta Tour Part 3- Weisbadener Hutte & Ochsentaier Glacier (28 Feb 2019)
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This post is part of a Throwback Thursday series featuring trip reports that we haven’t had a chance to write about until now! Look for them on Thursdays!
Well, it’s been a nearly a year since we were in the Tyrolean Alps skiing our hearts out for two weeks. When we arrived home, we managed to put a couple of reports together from our voyage. But, we got so busy jumping into spring ski season, that these reports got pushed by the wayside. Now that it’s the perfect time of year to be touring from hut to hut in the Alps, we thought we’d finish out documenting our journey.
The day before, we toured from Jamtal to Weisbadener Hutte. We had plans to potentially complete what most people call the Silvretta Tour by staying one more night at the Silvretta Hutte, just over the border in Switzerland. However, we knew that bad weather was on the way, and snow falling could make glacier travel difficult and dangerous, and we could have a challenging exit back to Galtur. So, we decided to jump the gun and skip the last night. But, that didn’t mean that we couldn’t enjoy a tour on the Ochsentaier Glacier before we departed, which beckoned us with it’s twinkly white from the Weisbadender Hutte.
In the morning, the sun shone bright as predicted. But the front was still on the way. We left the bulk of our gear still in the hut as we skinned our way over to the Ochsentaier Gletscher. The terrain near the bottom of the glacier was generally steep and sidehilled, and a little treacherous for the firm skinning conditions we encountered, even though tracks were beaten into the snow. I don’t have pictures from that terrain – because, frankly, I was gripped and didn’t want to fall into the crevasse below me – but here’s a couple from when it started to ease up.
As we climbed higher on the Oschentaier Glacier, it kept getting more and more beautiful – a very airy, other-wordly scene.
I started to enjoy myself.
First looks at the Piz Buin twins, standing at 10,866 ft and 10,679 ft.
The Piz Buin dominated the landscape and the photos don’t do them justice. They are actually relatively large. For perspective, can you see the three backcountry skiers in this photo?
And then, before we knew it, the Tyrolean Alps revealed themselves. Here, I gaze upon one of our descent toward the Weisbadener Hutte the day before.
But we had more skinning to do. We were headed toward a saddle called Egghomlucke, which sat on the border between Austria and Switzerland.
The enticing Sivrettahorne, 10,643 ft.
Our visit on the saddle was quick and dirty as the wind howled over it. We waved to Switzerland for the umpteenth time on our tour and quickly headed back down to warmth and shelter a few hundred feet below. Views of Switzerland.
Frank on the saddle.
Then, it was ski time. Frank.
Conan was not really on the picture program 🙂
Me.
The Weisbadener Hutte below.
We gathered our things in the hut, and then down valley we went, heading toward the beautiful Silvertella Stausse (reservoir), where we turned east toward Galtur.
The afternoon was hot, and we marveled at the numerous wet slide avalanches that poured down from the mountains, still relatively far away from our route of travel. We ended our tour at a small town called Wirl, where Conan hopped on a bus and retrieved our car from Ishgl.
While our tour the day before from Jamtal to Weisbadener was more exciting in terms of skiing, I think this tour on the Oschentaier Gletscher was the most scenic. Though it was a wrap for our awesome Silvretta tour, our trip was far from done. Next destination, Saint Anton. We had powder to ski 🙂
Here’s a look at our route for the day!
- Mount Buckskin (17 May 2020) - May 28, 2020
- Horseshoe Ski (14 May 2020) – The mountain whose journey nearly killed me - May 27, 2020
- Sayres X-Rated Ski (10 May 2020) - May 19, 2020
