Snow is the magic ingredient of winter that adds light and adventure to an otherwise grey winter's day. This is why I love Scottish winter climbing. In the Eastern Alps, the mountains are less accessible than in Scotland and are often covered by large amounts of snow so that skiing is much more practical than winter climbing. Together with Ana and Abdalla I did Nordic skiing during the last three wekeends but this Sunday Arno had proposed to skitour up Gilfert (2506 m), a mountain South of the Inn valley. The start in Innerst is 90 min away from Munich and the ascent is 1200 altimetres. The first part of the route is through a forest. Overnight snow gave way to sunshine by the time we started. Here is Arno in the forest...
... and here we have a first glimpse of Gilfert...
... and here an even better view.
Many skitourers left a good track...
... and after 2 h 30 min we approached the summit...
... after these skiers.
Here is Arno on the last bit...
... and here he is at the top with a view over the Inn valley.
It was sunny but temperatures were far below zero. We took the skins off our skis and descended through beautiful, fluffy powder above a harder layer. Here is Arno styling it...
... and here are those special Alpine views...
... that explain why so many folk want to live in Munich.
We had our own powder...
... and etched both our own wiggly lines into it.
Here the last bit before reaching forest tracks to the bottom.
At the bottom a Jausenstation (restaurant) in the sunshine with beer and a divine Knoedelsoup. A perfect day?
HW
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