So, we get to the Simony hut then continue a few kilometers up the glacier to the base of a small rocky north face (a few hundred vertical meters) which leads to the Dachstein summit. The cable route is fun, sort of like a free-solo of an easy 5th class route. Ice has buried the cable in a few places, so we get out the rope and belay, as a fall would have serious consequences.
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| Fritz heads up. We should have had two ices axes. |
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| Me on the summit. Hey, it’s not that big but I did come a few thousand miles for it… |
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| The layout. |
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| Funny how those stickers turn up everywhere in Europe. |
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| Looking southeast from the summit, to Schladming, where they hold one of the World Cup downhill races. |
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| So, we get back down to Simony and get coffee. Thus, Name That Pastry! Again, this is an easy one, something everyone should know and common in the U.S.
We decide to hang around for a while and relax, so the layover becomes a two pastry affair. While there, Salewa/Dynafit owner Heiner Oberrauch shows up. Nice to chat up the chief. He’s a nice guy, with a hearty demeanor and obvious passion for alpinism and mountain culture. Fritz and hang out till it’s almost dark, then go down to fetch our skis. Only, we’re missing one pair. Dang, Oberrauch hid ’em! It’s getting dark and there is no way one of us is going to walk multiple kilometers on the snowmobile trail. We look all over the place and can’t find the planks. I’m thinking the thieves might have skied down a few hundred yards and dropped them on the trail, so I head down for a look. No luck. So we walk back up to the Simony and phone down to the other hut. All the while we’re saying “this isn’t funny anymore,” and I’m thinking these Tyrolean jokers better be ready for revenge, like their Dynafit bindings end up somehow missing a spring the next time they clip in. Eventually the call comes back, “boys your skis are in the Hundehaus.” The one place we didn’t look — a doghouse surrounded by a minefield of canine Scheiße. Oh yeah, I just learned German words #ten and #eleven. |
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.
