Silvretta Traverse
Yesterday was an approach day. Even so, a short but classic tour. But today was the real deal. Up over a high pass with a small but aesthetic bonus summit along the way.
Breakfast at the Heidelberg was typical of this region: coffee, tea, good bread, cold cuts, and cereal if meat wasn’t your thing. Thermos filling was done from the tea water tank. I mixed up a liter of Cytomax, kept my Rittersport chocolate at the top of my pack, and off we went on a well beaten skin track heading southerly to the high Alps.
Today, the HOT high alps. What a scorcher. I’d thought having my old acrylic North Face collared shirt and lightweight bill cap would be minimal enough, but dressing the lower legs in my OR Tremor pants was still too much. The air must have been at least 70 degrees, that combined with the glacier reflector oven — ouch. Took me an hour or so to remember an old trick for such situations. Just grab a handful of snow and wad it on the back of your neck like some kind of medieval poultice designed to purge evil spirits. The snow melts and drips nice icy water down your chest and back — just like a cold shower! Joy!
My heat outfit. Okay Dave, some fashion consulting please? (And no, that's not a pastry baby, just my junky shirt with full pockets, thank-you-very-much.)
This is 'are you a guide?' Ted Kerasote. Dots mark our first destination, a classic tour and summit known as Breite Krone, a short jog from the pass (right hand dot) we'd take to change valleys and descend to Jamtal Hut
This six day trip will eventually include quite a bit of glacier travel, but today's dose of fern ice was in the distance. I love the way this stuff looks (and hope it doesn't all melt in the next few years!)
This wasn't exactly a long tour. About 3,000 vertical feet total. But after strolling up and down Breite Krone we got this perfect corn snow run down to the porch of the Jamtal Hut . One of those runs where your skis feel like they're turning themselves, as you play around with different radius turns and experiment with a sweet spot on your planks that feels a mile long. This is Ted.
Ted again. Closer to the Jamtal Hut and a beer on the porch, but still a few thousand vert to go.
It keeps going and going. Sure, lower angled stuff isn't the big adrenaline rush a couloir is, but with this kind of quality the grin factor more than makes up for adrenaline deprivation. Ted is just above the hut, widening out those turns! But...wider turns will deny your Euro guide qualifications -- you must make three turns per meter to qualify! I guess no one was watching, whew.
Ah, and there is Lou, trying for that Arlberg look, figuring someone must be watching from down there! And yep, that's Jamtalhutte and it's got to be one of the coolest lodges in the Alps.
Jamtal in all its glory. You can literally step from your skis onto the porch after your run. Pillar to left is an ice thing.
Me, simply amazed. A bit different than the Braun Huts in Colorado, that's a fact.
They don't bother with live bands here for apres ski. Instead you watch avalanches...
...and sip that special wheat nectar.
Bonus shot, private room at the Jamtal, mastering the GPS or blogging? Who knows?
Photos by Lou and Ted.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
