Previous winter I could not ski at all due to my knee injury, which by the way is still not fully recovered. Anyway, now things are a lot better and I'm eager to try ski touring to see if it creates any problem or not.
There is still not an awful lot of snow around, and temperatures are still quite high (for ski touring), so we choose to start from the Oberalppass and go up to the Rossbodenstock. Part of this tour I did already two winters ago, but that time we started from Andermatt.
Getting started at the Oberalppass is an amazing feeling. I have been waiting for this since April 2013, which was last time I skied. The first few steps with the skis feel very strange...probably I'm not used to the movement anymore...but it takes only a few minutes to get fully back into it. And yes, after one year and a half I'm finally ski touring again!!! Weather is perfect, probably even too warm, snow seems to be good and the views are fantastic. What could you ask more?
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| And off we go!!!!!!!! |
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| On the way up |
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| Great and warm sun |
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| Still going for the top of the Pazolastock |
Anyway, the route up the Pazlastock goes pretty easy, just following the very well trodden track of the many other ski tourer also going up. From the top we shortly descend back on the ridge and follow the ridge to the Rossbodenstock. Some parts of the ridge are quite narrow and steep, and due to my inexperience in ski touring not totally trivial. But it just takes a bit longer and in the end we reach the summit of the Rossbodenstock as well. We even get to take off the skis, put them on the rucksack, and walk up a rather steep section of the ridge with an ice axe in the hand. Too steep to go up with the skis.
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| Top of Pazolastock |
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| Rossbodenstock seen from Pazolastock |
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| View in the valley towards Realp |
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| On the top of Rossbodenstock...time to go down! |
On the top, for me at least, the fun part stops. When I stopped skiing my level was decent enough to enjoy a little bit...but after such a long break I have the feeling I won't be able to ski. And in fact that's not that far from the truth! The descent is not really much fun. The snow at the beginning is actually really good but I just can't manage to make a proper turn...it's all about brute force, no technique, and no fun. Just when I was starting to get the hang of it again and to properly "fight" for each turn I take the most spectacular fall in my short skiing career. I pick up some speed on very bad crusty snow...and I don't see that there is a small river to cross, which is not entirely covered in snow. I realize this too late and the only thing I can try it to jump the river. Somehow I manage to get over it, but the skis get stuck with the tips in the snow on the other side. Given the rather high speed I immediately take off from the skis and get face first in the snow...which feels like sand paper...and the momentum was high enough that I hinged over my neck and landed on my back. I was actually laughing when I fell because that felt rather funny, and I'm sure if I could see this from the outside I would probably still be laughing!! On the spot I don't feel any pain, but my back will ache for the next few days :).
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| Me...trying to survive the way down :) |
Nevertheless, still a very good day even if my downhill performance was absolutely scarce. At least I understood that my knees are completely fine for ski touring, and we did in total approximately 1000m of ascent so not too bad for a test. 1000m because once we reached again the road coming down from the Oberalppass we decided to ski back up to the pass instead of going more downhill, where the snow was not so certain...and mainly because I could not take a single turn more :)
Just looking forward to do some more practice and to get back to a decent skiing level to actually enjoy also the downhill part.
