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!