Thursday
Craig flew over from London and we caught the train and bus to Lech. We dumped our stuff in Leonie’s work flat and after a nap went for a short tour up towards Woerstlerhorn. We abandoned at dusk before the saddle and skied back down. Back at the flat we caught up with Leonie over nachos.
Friday
It had cleared late on Thursday evening and the weather was perfect in the morning with plenty of sunshine. Unfortunately there was much faffing before we left. We took the bus to Zug and headed off along the mostly flat ski trail. It was really warm and I skated along in a t shirt. We began to climb up towards the Göppinger Hütte and the clouds began to roll in. After a while all the blue was gone and the temperature dropped and it began to snow. It was still warm enough though that when the snow flakes landed they would immediately melt on your legs and arms. We kept zig-zagging our way up until we reached a flatter section. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped further until we were in a blizzard. We headed towards the hut in a flat light that reminded me of our ski touring trip in Norway last year.
We reached the hut and walked around looking for the winter room. At first we couldn’t find it and we got ready to dig through the huge piles of snow banked up against the hut in search of it. Luckily Craig spotted another building not far off and this turned out to be our place for the night.
Leonie lit a Leonie fire and after a few hours we had the little hut warm enough and were able to boil water on the pot belly. I was a bit impatient and started by melting snow on my MSR. The snow outside the hut was a fine powder that banked up from the wind. A large pot of snow melted down to a tiny amount of water but by the time we went to bed we had two large pots of water for morning.
Saturday
The wind had died, and it was a sunny morning. We skied up to a nearby peak and then had a nice powdery descent into a basin before returning to the hut. We ate lunch and then descended into the valley. The weather deteriorated again and it ended up being grey and cold again. Leonie walked a large section of the descent as the snow conditions made it very difficult to ski. We caught the bus back to Lech for the night.
Sunday
More perfect weather in the morning. This time we took the bus to Zuers and skied up the the ski slopes before taking a left into deep powder and looping back around to Rosskopf and then further to the Schwarzer Turm. The snow was perfect. Lots of deep powder. We had a bit to eat and peered down into the valley far below us. Then it was time for the most enjoyable descent of the season so far. A delicious powder-fest. We skied back to Zuers. Leonie took the bus back to Lech and craig and I set off for some more touring up the ski field before having another nice descent followed by some fun skiing down a walking track back to Lech.
Monday
We got up early and Craig and I went for a short tour up onto the ski field before heading back down and driving back to Lindau.