Last weekend I did try skitouring for the first time, but the conditions were not the best...especially there was no real "base layer" of snow. After another relatively warm week with respect to standards and a rather warm weekend coming I was not really in the mood to go skitouring again. Main reason was that I was not so keen to risk skiing on rocks or grass!
But it has been snowing so it's also not possible to go any higher than 2000m without having to fight against lot of really soft and wet snow...
Hence we decide for a "normal" hike up to Speer. In order to try and keep it challenging we walk all the way up (and down) from Weesen (which is 1600m of altitude difference), and on top of it starting from Unterkäseren we follow the west ridge instead of the normal route. Not that it was technically difficult, but at least it sometimes gave the feeling of a really easy alpine tour. Mainly the ridge consists of steep grass ledges, which if wet can be really dangerous, and a few "rocky" sections. The rocks is however rather strange...it's basically a big pile of round rocks hold together by some sort of "natural concrete". Most of the rocks were quite loose so scrambling was only an option when we really had to...you never know if you can trust these things or not!
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| At the edge between grey and sad fog and wonderful sunshine |
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| Those people under the fog are going to have to wait quite some time to see the sun! |
There are of course no real technical difficulties, except for some little "jumps" which however can be avoided by walking on the north side (left hand side facing the summit). Also the ridge was pretty much free of snow, except for some shady regions and the very top.
In almost exactly 4 hours including breaks and photos we get to the top, which is all for us! Not moving around is not properly hot, but there is almost no wind and a light jacket is enough to sit down and enjoy some really good views. Säntis looks really impressive from this side, as the highest summits of Glarus. Considerably warm for being the 6th of December...there is indeed quite some snow all around but it's wet and without any proper binding to the ground, so I'm really convinced that skitouring would have been no good idea.
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| The mountains around look like waves |
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| On the ridge |
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| Sänits from up here looks quite big |
For the way down we decide to keep the axes in the hands...not that steep but since we carried them all the way up...The beginning of the way down has quite some snow, but surprisingly still rather hard. Perfect consistency to slide down really quickly without hurting the knees! Unfortunately this does not last very long and we soon have to face rather deep and terribly soft snow. Yelling becomes almost compulsory after you sink several times in a row down to the hips :-) and it feels like we have already seen enough snow for the whole winter!
Luckily the deep snow is soon over and the last several hundred meters are way more comfortable.
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| Back into autumn...winter will have to wait |
It felt like going back to the old days of hiking, but it was good! Quite difficult to find something more challenging without having to swim in the snow for hours. And after all what really matters is to have some fun and to spend some time in good company, and that's exactly what happened. Plus some quite good training, which is always welcome!
