Europe

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.

After skiing Gamsspitze, we had to decide whether to descend the glacier a bit in order to reascend on the other side, which would allow us to go over a pass called Tiroler Scharte, the traditional way to Weisbadener Hut, which was our destination for the evening. Or we could go via another route involving 3 passes, which may or may not work. We decided for adventure.

After flying direct from Denver to Munich, we were jet-lagged. So, rather than pushing for a little further destination, we decided to start our first tour (the day after arriving into Germany) close to Garmisch – in the mountains of Tirol just over the Austrian border. We drove to the town of Biberwier and began our tour from Marienberg Ski Area. Our plan was to circumnavigate the massif whose highest peak is Grunstein (2663 m). We took three lifts for a bump in elevation (ski touring tickets are cheap).