With skis above and below the fog of Safiental

On the official SAC magazine "Die Alpen" there is one report about a nice skitouring destination, the Safiental. Apparently not far on a straight line but quite isolated from the "rest of the world"...even though in the centre of Switzerland. Despite the fact that the forecast is not looking absolutely wonderful we decide to book for one night in Turrahus, the mountain hut/restaurant at the bottom end of the valley, and spend there the entire weekend.

Getting there is already an experience. Until the beginning of the valley with the motorway is quite fast, but afterwards it takes more than 40 minutes to get to the end of it...and the welcome is not that great because as soon as we arrive there it's quite cold and rather cloudy. Still it is possible to see at a reasonable distance so we decide to start a skitour up to the Piz Tomül, starting just in front of Turrahus. There are tracks all the way up and is therefore never difficult to find the way...but the more we go up the more we seem to be swallowed  by the fog and visibility becomes increasingly worse...

That's the end of the tunnel

That bright jacket is good in the fog!

At the end of the fog

Sun cream time!

...nevertheless there is a growing feeling of "light at the end of the tunnel". And in fact all of a sudden we are just above the clouds and under a perfectly blue sky! Views are just wonderful and I spend good 10 minutes just admiring the surrounding mountains. We keep on going up pointing at the long south ridge of Piz Tomül, which is the "normal" route...and probably also the only way up with skis.
At the beginning of the ridge the snow starts to be a bit more wind blown, icy at times. Also the wind starts to pick up a little bit. However the tracks are quite comfortable and safe all the way up this ridge and we keep on going. Most people were already turning back at some point on the ridge before the summit...not really sure why.I can imagine the ski conditions are not the best on this ridge but hey, you came all this way up and you are not willing to get to the top? The ridge is not narrow but not that wide either and I'm already getting a little bit worried about the way down. But as the good old guys from the SAC Ticino say "even stones come back down"...so no worries!  After the ridge and a couple of zig zags on rather icy snow we finally reach the summit! And what a view from up here. Honestly I was not expecting such wonderful weather above the fog and I "can't wait" to ski down. 

We have overtaken those guys...as all the other on the route

Usain Bolt pose on the ridge

Promising ski descent

As forecasted the initial part of the descent is not that much fun on the ridge as it involves mainly a lot of sliding. But as soon as we get off the ridge the snow becomes a lot better and really powdery in places. If only my technique was good enough to properly enjoy all this! Nevertheless, I still manage it quite decently, with a couple of soft falls only.

The last part of the descent involves being again swallowed by the fog which also involves giving up on distinguishing bumps and holes on the way...Not that enjoyable to ski those last couple of hundreds of meters but we know a warm restaurant and several cold beers are waiting for us...and we don't like to keep them waiting!
A nice trip I must say, better than I expected in all respects.

Panorama of the day...

The three of us at the top, just before the descent

And Turrahus, what a place. Is rather full and therefore also a bit cramped with skins and wet socks hanging off from everywhere, boots covering half of the floor and people in skin tight thermal underwear walking up and down the stairs. Isn't this what every mountain hut should be looking like in winter?

On Sunday we wake up again in the clouds, but we hope it's going to be like Saturday where we managed to be higher than the clouds. There is even some new snow which has surely made the descents even more appealing...but probably also more dangerous. The objective of today is the Bärenhor and the track at the beginning follows the rather flat valley along the river. Visibility is not great but luckily is not really possible to get lost at the beginning as we simply have to follow the valley. We soon realize that it's not going to be that easy today. The amount of new snow is not really negligible and making tracks is quite tiring. Plus visibility becomes really bad to the point that I had to wave around my ski poles to understand where it was going up or down...yes, it was that bad. After passing by Alvena and heading up to the pass we decide not to continue anymore because we really can't see anything anymore...I can barely see my sticks!! 
To our great surprise, and with quite some regret, we see that the lower part of Safiental, around Turrahus, was finally in the sun and that it was actually possible to skitour with very good visibility. Nevermind, we choose the wrong destination for today. But once back at the car I'm not happy with the amount of downhill for the day and I decide to put the skins back on and to literally sprint up to the first hut (Gumhütta) and to ski back down from there. Very good snow but once again my technique is the issue!

Skitour Sommet des Diablerets 3210m, finally some real powder

Last weekend me and a group of friends went to Saanen to enjoy a bit of skiing in the posh area of Gstaad. Once arrived there on the Friday there is almost no snow, but on Saturday around 40cm fall and the conditions become immediately good for a ski tour. The choice is for the highest peak in the region which is the Sommet des Diablerets. We can only start from the bottom station at 9:40 so we decide to take the cable car up until Sex Rouge (what the hell of a name is that by the way?), ski down to the glacier and then start heading to the summit. I know...taking the cable car is cheating...but hey, other this way or nothing this time :)

At the arrival on the top cable car station it is clear is going to be a nice, but rather cold and windy day. For the first part of the descent I'm wearing all the 5 layers I took with me...and this even in the first part of the uphill. At the beginning we go up on the side of the piste, and then shortly after straight on the ridge pointing up to Le Dome. As soon as we go off piste something else becomes clear...there is a lot of new snow and it is going to be tiring to break trails today. From the summit of Le Dome the route follows the ridge slightly on the right hand side until the very last part before the saddle between P 2986 and P 3109. Last part of the ridge is far too steep to be skied down so we put the crampons on, take the ice axe and down climb it. Quite easy terrain but it adds some sort of excitement to the tour. 

Just before the down climbing section

Once on the saddle we gently get down on the glacier slowly sliding down the steep side of it, straight on the glacier. The slope is very short, but it looks like it could be dangerous for avalanche so we just take it easy...until we are finally down on the glacier...completely white and completely untouched. It looks as soft as a cloud....but you know what this means?? That we are going to have to break trails for the whole day on it!! It's not steep, and it won't be steep until the summit but we are sinking all the time beyond the knee and a couple of times almost up to the hips!! Breaking trails in such a soft and deep snow is for sure something nice but also very tiring! Snow is so deep that the person breaking trails can't see his skis anymore. It feels like running in the water, just much more tiring. We take turns in breaking trail and soon we reach the plateau between the summits of Sommet des Diablerets and Tete de Barme (which at the beginning wrongly believed was the summit we were aiming for...). 

Yes...it was that deep!

Kane looking pretty happy...little does he know that I stopped to ask him to break trails :)

The last part of the uphill on the summit is the most steep one and despite all the effort to break trail, we just can't wait to ski this stuff down!! At the same time we see people following up back on the ridge. They seem to be very slow on the ridge and we realize they probably don't have crampons or axe and are just abseiling that short section that we down climbed. Safe, that's for sure, but it took them almost two hours to get back down on the glacier!

And finally we get on the last part of the summit ridge were soft and fluffy snow leaves for much harder and sometimes completely icy wind blown snow. As always in the Alps the view from the summit is simply amazing but given the strong wind and the rather cold condition there is not much time to sit around and take pictures. Just a quick stop, take the skins off, and the back down on the glacier to enjoy the powder.....

Matterhorn, Dent Blanche...and all the other magnificent 4000m summits of Wallis

.....enjoy??? Apart from the very first meters down where the angle is steep enough, we simply cannot ski down unless pushing ourselves with the ski poles. Snow is so soft, and the angle of the slope is so small that there is no chance to get enough lift to actually ski this stuff. The only thing to do is to lean back as far as possible and trying to slowly go forward...but this makes our legs burn like hell in a matter of a less than a minute. So we come up with an interesting idea. One of us has to to try and break trails first while the other wait. Then the second picks up speed in the trail of the first one and at the last moment overtakes the first one, keeping on breaking trails with the gained inertia...Yes such things happens when two engineers go ski touring together!
But even this approach is not working like wonder and we decide to just head straight for our uphill tracks. Once on them we simply have to follow. To break I simply point my skis back in the fresh powder and sometimes the snow piles up to my chest...never seen anything like this. If only we had a 25° slope to get down on it would have been so much better...but also more dangerous because of possible avalanches.

Deep powder

Walking back up on the ridge

Nevertheless, once back under the ridge we take the skis of and walk back the steep part until the saddle, then put crampons back on and climb back the part of ridge that we down climbed. On the summit of Le Dome we put the skis back on and get back down on the glacier. Skiing on the piste gives a nice relief from all the efforts of the day...but it's not yet over. Since we did not pay for the full ski pass we decide to skin up the last part to the cable car station...and I take the chance to transform this last part of the tour into a cardio training! Just push push push up the hill like mad, taking a couple of breaks to get back some oxygen in the lungs.

View from the summit of Le Dome back towards our tour...the tracks are pretty obvious.

A short but intense and tiring day...surely worth all the efforts and also the not really cheap ticket for the cable car!