Friday:
Leonie and I headed off to Austria for the Easter break. We drove to Schruns on Friday morning and set off on our skis to the Lindauer Hütte. The weather was rather horrid but we trekked up in the grey gloom anyway arriving in the evening. We were carrying huge packs as we had planned to cook for ourselves in the little ‘winter-raum’ connected to the hut. The hut is really nice. It looks like it was renovated at some point reasonably recently and we had a room to ourselves which was all wood and nice looking. We headed down to make dinner and discovered that the oven that we had seen in the picture on the website was in fact a wood fired contraption. So Leonie set to work with her elite fire making skills and I chopped vegies (with my elite vegie chopping skills no less). In not much longer than an hour we had succeeded to boil some water. Sometime later we were eating delicious curry. Yum, yum. I then proceeded to show Leonie how to rehydrate dehydrated fruit for a delicious treat but no sooner had I done this I managed to throw it all on the floor. Never mind… Still I was pleased with our ability to overcome the odds and cook dinner.
Above left: The weather report was bad but we were keen anyway. We drove down to Schruns on Friday morning with our skis and skinned up to the Lindauer Hütte. Above middle: The weather report was bad but we were keen anyway. We drove down to Schruns on Friday morning with our skis and skinned up to the Lindauer Hütte. Above right: Leonie had a grin on her face despite the grey as we headed up to the hut.
Saturday:
The weather cleared on Friday evening and Saturday dawned with blue skies and lollipops. Unfortunately this was very short lived and as we set off at 8 am it was overcast and grey. Despite this we had a fun tour up to the Drusentor (2342 m), a gateway across the border from Austria to Switzerland. Of course I took photos to record that I was in both countries.
As we descended so did the fog. We spent the rest of the day eating Germknödel, blobbing, and peering out the window at the falling snow.
Above left: Leonie shows how much of a hard out she is after we deposited our skis and clambered up to the Drusentor. Isn’t this an expression that says I am having fun? Above right: We did some posing at the border between Switzerland and Austria.
Sunday:
The weather was really quite bad. Lots of snow fall and fog. We went out midmorning for a ski up to Öfapass. At least we think we did. It could have been anywhere. We may have attempted to go up Öfakopf but as we couldn’t see more than 20-30 metres in front of us we turned around (or did we… we don’t know) and headed back down (we think) to the hut.
Above left: Another day of snow and low visibility didn’t stop us from heading up the valley to Öfapass. Above middle: We did some posing at the border between Switzerland and Austria. Above right: We did some posing at the border between Switzerland and Austria.
Monday:
The weather was fantastic. The snow was even better. We headed off early towards the Großen Drusenturm. We had chosen to do a variant of the ‘normal’ route and headed up to a a point that allows access to the Sporertobel (the normal route). The access point meant crossing a steep face in powder. After watching others floundering around on the section for 20 minutes or so we decided against the idea. Instead we skied a delicious powder run back down into the valley. It was so delicious that we had a bite to eat and then skinned part the way up the mountain again and did it again.
It was then back to the hut for some food and then we skied back down the valley to the car and drove back to Freiburg.
Above left: The weather improved during the night and on Monday morning we were greeted to this view from our window. Mmmm fresh powdery snow and blue skies. Above right: The snow really was delicious.
Above left: Nice view looking down the valley. Above right: This is a view looking up towards the slopes. We skied in the area in the middle of the picture.
Above left: Yay, nice weather, perfect snow. Above middle: Leonie happy to be on her skis as we set off towards the Großen Drusenturm. Above right: We decided to turn around here rather than attempt the tricky snow traverse that you can see. There are four people currently on it in the picture. I’m sure it would have been doable but it was perhaps a little on the tricky side.
Above left: Leonie shows off her track making skills on our first descent. Above right: Despite the nice weather it got quite windy as the day continued. Leonie skis back along the ridge towards the hut.
Above left: Leonie heading up towards the Großer Drusenturm. We headed up to a tricky traverse where we turned around and skied down through delicious powder. As it was so delicious we decided to do it again, and trekked up the mountain once more for a second run. Above right: A nice view up the valley towards the Lindauer Hütte.
Ski touring Lindauer Hütte March 2013 – All_web
Above: A half-way complete map of what we did. It’s missing the third day as the GPS log did some funny things and placed us briefly a couple of mountain ranges away from where we were…
