Alps

Grieskogel is a medium sized ski peak in the western Stubai Alps, in the Larstiger mountains between Sellrain and Hochstubai. You reach it for backcountry skiing via the usual network of roads you find in this area, in this case reminding me of spring skiing on Independence Pass back in Colorado. I’d hooked up for today’s trip with Manfred Barthel, the Austrian alpinist elder I’ve come to know over the past few years. Manfred continues to amaze me with his skill and endurance, not to mention his amazing knowledge of the Alps. He seems to have a sixth sense of where the snow is good, the avy danger lower, or the

(Note, I’ve got a few more trip reports to file from the latest EU trip, but this is the last of the Silvretta posts. To step through the Silvretta trip reports, start here.) Six days straight of nearly 100% bluebird…

Our adventure lifestyle is sometimes an extension of our father’s. I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old. Not only was my father quite the outdoorsman back then, but he loved gardening and had quite the green thumb. He also loved hiking and exploring.

If you want more than low angled glacier touring, build climbing or layover days into your Silvretta Traverse schedule. Stay at any of the huts for two nights or more, and you have time for some leisurely peak bagging or…

After yesterday’s partly cloudy skies, and thus cutting the last of the day’s goals, we, of course, picked roast bluebird off the Day 4 fantasy menu. And yes, next morning our dreams became reality: perfect azure skies, hundreds of square…

Breakfast at the Heidelberg was typical of this region: coffee, tea, good bread, cold cuts, and cereal if meat wasn’t your thing. Today we head to the Jamtal Hut on the Silvretta Traverse. 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.