Despite the fact that ski touring would still be possible, I think is time to put the skis away ...and also I need some training for summer mountaineering before I lead my first tour as an official SAC tour guide at the end of June. The plan is to attempt the Gross Spannort, which would be the back up plan in case of bad weather.
But I have to admit I miss my skis already....
We start at 10:00 from Erstfeld to walk all the way up (clearly on foot) to the Kröntenhütte. A very kind guy approaches us on his little van just at beginning of the way up, still on the road. He says he is also going to the Kröntenhütte and asks us if we want a lift to Bodenberg at the car park, to spare the first 600m of ascent. My first reaction is "Whaaattta!! There is no way I will get a lift up"...but this time I'm going up with a girl and my kindness tells me to first check with her what she would like to do. Typical woman reaction..."you have to decide"...so I stick to my religion of never taking mechanical means of transport on the way up, thank the guy for the offer and keep walking. Luckily, she says this was a good decision! Lovely!
The way up is not exactly short as it is approximately 1500m. Moreover in the rucksack I have all the equipment to cook plus food for dinner and breakfast as I don't know if there will be the hut warden...and I have also the rope and additional gear for my friend...pretty heavy and bulky rucksack. But it is probably one of the best example of "time goes very fast when you have fun". We talk and talk and talk for the entire time on the way up...about everything! We almost realize we are at the hut because we hit the door, not feeling tired at all for the rather long walk (around 4 hours or more).
 |
| Walking up to the hut |
 |
| Nice views in the evening |
Once up at the hut and after having had a nice coffee we start some basic training in rope handling and crevasse rescue, which could be important for the day after. It's not a super crevassed glacier but at least one should know what do if...as the English would say...the shit hits the fan! I find it quite interesting that me, a guy from the south of Puglia is explaining a Swiss girl born close to the mountains how to do crevasse rescue...I should probably be explaining how to fish and catch crabs! After a training session we walk up the path of tomorrow for little bit more than 30 minutes...just to make sure we don't get lost early in the morning.
Dinner in the hut is really good, probably because there are only 4 other people there other than the two of us. Normally this means the hut warden is a lot less stressed and therefore cooks better, and more importantly there is more food for us! We keep on talking a lot during dinner and even after...until we realize it's 22:30 and we should get to bed because we plan on waking up at 4:15 the next day...
To my surprise breakfast is even better than dinner and there is a huge hand made Butterzopf available! I have to come back to this hut in the future. Anyway at 5:00 we start walking up without the need of head torches because there is already enough light. The walk up until the beginning of the Graw Stock follows the path which is really easy to find. Afterwards we decide not to follow the path anymore but instead the snow field which contours around the Graw Stock and several meters underneath the actual path. There is still enough snow plus it's in very good conditions so why not...
Very quickly we reach the beginning of the glacier where roping up becomes necessary...not really because of crevasses but more because I was a bit bored of carrying the rope up all by myself :). Also the snow on the glacier is in really good conditions and walking towards to Spannortjoch is really not an issue at all. I could have taken a safer and longer route going a bit around but looking at the conditions of the glacier I think that going straight up to the pass is not a problem at all. A few very small crevasses are encountered on the way up, but really nothing to be worried about.
 |
| Good morning Uri |
 |
| First view of the Spannort |
 |
| Alone on the glacier...still with good views... |
 |
| That's the goal of today...still quite far on a flat glacier...and without skis... |
Once at the Spannortjoch we don't manage to see the beginning of the correct route so once up the very first snow field we go to the left. Here there is a very interesting couloir which could be climbed up...but getting back down might be a problem. So we decide that this cannot be the correct route and decide instead to get back on the snow field and up to the right. Immediately we see a couple of abseil stands...and it becomes clear we have found the right way. After the second stand there is a small rock climbing passage to be overcome before getting to an easy section where is possible to walk. From the end of this section to the right of a couloir there is another abseil stand, which we will then use later on. The route to the top goes slightly to the left up some easy ledges...yes easy but still care is needed because everything falls apart on this mountain...
After this other climbing passage the route gets back more or less on the ridge, which is now really wide and almost like a walk in the park...but always on very loose rubble. From here zig-zagging up a rock band can be reached to the right of another couloir and this can be climbed very easily on the left hand side. There is an abseil point almost at the end and another one shortly above. It's not really needed to stop at the first one, since the climbing in between is very easy. Now there is yet another section of walking up before the last, and most difficult (still easy) rock band to be climbed. Above this one yet another abseil point and then walk up on the snow until the summit!
 |
| Summit shot...if only...there would have been also a nice view... |
Honestly we started the whole thing only with the intention of finding the beginning of the route. Then we kept on saying "ok let's go up only another few meters...", and then again and again and again for these "few meters" until we reached the summit. All this made us loose quite some time, but since the rain came a lot earlier than forecasted we would have got wet in any case. Also we spent quite a lot of time looking for an abseil point which I thought should have been there where I was looking, which is at the bottom of the second last climbing passage. But probably I just misread the description in German because after almost one hour of looking around I could not find absolutely anything...Anyway, nice feeling being the only two people on the mountain for today. Most likely there is nobody around for several kilometers as well. And the reason is probably that the weather is really not looking very good...in the morning it was OK but now is very cloudy and the feeling is that it will start raining soon.
We manage to get down most of the way when, before the last two abseils, it actually starts to snow. From the abseil point that I mentioned at the beginning, to the right of the couloir, it would be possible to get back down on the glacier with a 50m abseil. But we only had 25m so we had to stop at a stand in the middle...which was not really comfortable. The ledge was rather small and it looked like the rock where the bolts were drilled in was not that stable...but it hold quite nicely for the two of us. From this point onwards is possible to get back down on the glacier without problems.
 |
| The last abseil, from a not so comfortable stand |
Now that we are almost out of dangers we have to walk all the way down to the valley, at least to Bodenberg. Including a break at the hut to drink something warm and eat something as well it takes a very long time to walk down. And it rains for the entire way...making the rucksack much heavier than yesterday. All the rocks are very slippery which makes a little bit frustrating walking down...and despite the fact that we get back to Bodenberg at 20:00 in the evening we still feel really happy of having enjoyed this nice first alpine tour, with a little taste of "adventure" to it! Despite mother nature seemed to be against us (snow, rain, slippery rocks...) we kept smiling back at it, keeping it funny. What would have been the point of complaining anyway?? This kind of follows the rule number 3...if shit happens, look cool anyway! But that was not really shit...it can go a lot worse than that!
Next time though...I would like to have a view from the top, not only clouds!
No comments:
Post a Comment