Rossbodenstock skitour

It's been more than a week since the last time on the snow, due to the Easter holidays. Now the weather forecast is looking quite good in the central Alps and the need to go touring awakes again. This time is only a one day tour, on Saturday, since on Sunday I have to run the first 10km of the Zürich marathon. The target of today's tour is the Rossbodenstock, above Andermatt. 

   We set off rather early...but not the earliest possible. Getting to Andermatt we are surprised by the relatively low amount of snow around the town. 

The beginning of the real ski tour...finally with skis

This means that we have to walk for a while, ski on the shoulder, before we can actually start skiing. We follow the main road of the Oberalppass up to a bend where a foot path starts. Luckily here there is enough snow to put the skins on. The ski route follows the foot path until a few houses are encountered and then turns up to the left, roughly following a ridge. Actually this is a "official" way down from the Rossbodenstock. 

View towards Andermatt

The standard way up is from the Oberalppass...which involves a much smaller altitude gain but a slightly longer walk on the ridge. We follow the route 233c which is traversing on the side of the mountain until reaching the large gully starting at the Martschallücke. At this point we take a small break to enjoy the sun that is actually shining much more and much warmer than expected. 

First view of the Martschallücke

Zig---

---Zag

Getting there...

From this point onwards is impossible to miss the route since there are a lot of tracks coming down from the Martschallücke. Slowly zig-zagging up we finally reach the Martschallücke where we encounter another group of ski tourers with an alpine guide. They took the easier option and started from the Oberalppass. The decision at this point is to walk up to the Rossbodenstock and then to ski down from the top, route down still to be chosen.

On the "steep" bit of the ridge

Ridge becomes "skinnable" again

First part of the ridge from the Martschallücke requires putting the ski on the rucksack because its too steep to be skinned. We only use the ice axe, and that's more than enough for the given snow conditions. At the top of this steep ridge section we put the skis back on and start skinning up the remaining part of the ridge, that now is really wide and almost flat. In the meanwhile we identify an untouched, average 40° steep north side that would be really good to ski. To me it looks quite steep, but I decide I will take the challenge and try it.

On the summit!!

After a few minutes we finally reach the summit, 1440m higher than what we started. Something to eat, some pictures, skins off an there we go...back down to Andermatt. That north face had one of the best snow I remember in the season. Really powdery, and not too fluffy. Unfortunately it was already tracked from the group with the alpine guide...but at least this told us that it could be safe. There is nothing absolutely safe in this kind of situations, but the fact that a mountain guide skied it down, gives us some confidence. First part of the descent goes on really quick enjoying the good snow...but soon we enter in the clouds that in meantime have been constantly rising. We follow the long traverse back without being able even to see the tip of the ski. Somehow we manage to find a spot that we are sure we passed by on the way up. From here we take a bearing to Andermatt and start following it. Dribbling patches of grass, small bushes and rocks...while skiing on massively wet snow we finally get back to the starting point.

   A really good day with enough ascent and a nice run down...and now back home to relax. I have a race waiting for me tomorrow!!