Stubai: 4th: Wilder Pfaff and Zuckerhutl

Next: Mullerhutte to Nurnberger

Prev: Wilder Freiger to the Muller Hutte

Note: this is a direct cut-n-paste of the Science Blogs post https://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2014/10/05/wilder-pfaff-and-zuckerhutl. I'm rather unsure why that didn't come across automatically.

Having got to the Mullerhutte I finally had a chance to climb the Zuckerhutl, which at 3505 m is the high point of the Stubai and something I've wanted to climb for ages. My diary reminds me it was a cold night: the hut is quite high at 3145 m, and I was alone in my dortoir, and used two blankets. There were a few other people in the hut: two Germans, who I'd half-met on the Signalgipfel, and another group of four; not sure where they went. Naturally, being a reserved Englishman, I merely nodded politely at them.

Happily, as you saw from the last pix on that post, the weather was glorious going into sunset, which implied that the rather dubious weather we'd been having was finally due to turn. Mmm, yes:

That's me on top of the Wilder Pfaff (its taken by one of Anna or Tobias, who I met "properly" on the summit). Since we were in 100% cloud, with additional light rain to dissuade me getting the camera out, I didn't bother take any pix of the route up. So here (from "tomorrow", taken from about the Mullerhutte) is the Wilder Pfaff (3458 m, R, the apparent high point on the skyline, and apparently-lower-but-actually-higher just peeking out from the L is the Zuckerhutl). Its not as pretty a pic as the one I used in my last post but its more informative as to the route:

I found this view quite intimidating, which is part of the interest: trying to guess the route from looking at it - not that I could do that this morning, since viz was 25 m at best; on the glacier, I could see nothing except the tracks, which I naturally followed, taking care to follow the right branches and not head off to the Becherhaus. After a while rocks appeared out of the cloud, and the odd cairn and paint blob, but the marking is thin. It starts to be a bit scary, with a sheer drop off to the R. To the L is snow / rock, initially easy but steepening higher. The ridge is generally narrow, with the odd awkward step or pull, and (only one?) cabled section. Easier with better viz, I'd imagine.

This is the view from the East, taken from about the start of the Lubeckerweg ridge, on the 8th of September. Look closely and you can see the summit cross. Here is a zoomed-out view from the same viewpoint. And here's another, from the summit of the Wilder Freiger, on the same day.

As I said, the weather was grey so whilst I'd got up at 6:30 I didn't trouble myself to leave until 8; A+T had left somewhat earlier. I'd climbed fairly quickly so met them just as they were getting to the summit; photos and sign the summit book all round. Oh, and here's the GPS track (something weird happens in the middle, the GPS gets the descent from the WP but totally fails to register the height gain up the Z. Odd).

What to do now? Sit down for a little rest of course, and ponder the (unknown) route to the Zuckerhutl. Decide to go for it; the route down to the Pfaffensattel is easy, and I'll take it from there. Or we will, since we'll go together.

Take care not to follow the branch of tracks that leads to the Hildesheimer hutte (I've not been there); faintly to the left is the edge / cornice which we don't approach too closely, and then there's a short climb up snow with the Zuckerhutl presumed to loom above. In better wx I'd consider the north face but as it is I'm happy to follow tracks. A party of three comes steaming back down the track - two young clients and a guide - and the guide shouts something in German that I'm informed is "you should be roped up if you're on a glacier". Meh. We start up the rock. Soon we come to a point where it gets interesting, sufficiently so that A+T aren't happy to proceed unroped - there's enough snow that the holds are covered, but not enough for the crampons to grip reliably, and sometimes you get that nice effect when the first time you try it, its all fine because there's enough snow, but the second time you've knocked the snow off and your crampons screeek across rock. I'm moderately happy to bumble on up and treat it as nice mixed ground, so after improvising a harness out of a sling (they have all the proper kit, I of course have none) I take the rope up. It turns out the difficult section is quite short and we de-rope after 25 m and thenceforth continue scrambling; other groups however stay roped. The top comes earlier than expected, but not earlier than I should have expected, since the saddle is at 3344 m. The wx is still rubbish:

I'm the one on the left. The guy on the right is composing a Norse epic in the summit book. Its moderately windy on the top which is annoying mostly because its blowing water droplets onto my glasses and I can't keep them clear; that doesn't improve the viz. Its also getting to that point that whilst I'm not cold now I can feel I will be in a bit, so we don't stay long. The descent is a bit yukky but OK; we don't rope up because we find the right route :-). The route wasn't obviously marked - but might have been under the snow - but there were occaisional "running belay" gear, which I've not seen elsewhere - kinda G-shaped metal hoops that you could fairly safely put the rope into and trust it not to come out, but you could do this quickly. We have to wait for 5+ mins for one of the roped parties to clear, which finally does make me cold. Then we get to tramp back up the WP and descend its ridge, which is also yukky-but-OK.

And so back to the hut. I do consider rushing back down to the Nurnberger and its hot showers, but sanity prevails and I don't. Later on the weather clears a little, but too late. A+T join me for the evening meal, which is again good. Here's the hut interior main room from breakfast the next morning.

Total time for the lot: 5:45.

Diary

Stubai: 3rd: Wilder Freiger to the Muller Hutte

Next: Wilder Pfaff and Zuckerhutl 

Prev: Rest Day

Note: this is a direct cut-n-paste of the Science Blogs post https://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2014/09/24/wilder-freiger-to-the-muller-hutte. I'm rather unsure why that didn't come across automatically.

After the Habicht I walked across to the Bremer hut and then the Nurnberger, and my next mountain was the Wilder Freiger. Its not difficult (incidentally, for a nice piece about the same region from the viewpoint of someone more cautious than me, see here) and this would be my third ascent but conditions were less than perfect:

That's a view across the valley to the Simmingjochl, yesterday's route from the Bremer; look closely and you can see the Zollhutte on the skyline. I'd got up at 6 as an act of faith, but the snow, and the cloud base at ~2700 m, and the subsequent rain made me linger over breakfast and I didn't actually set off until 9. If you want to follow along at home, here's the GPS track.

Looking SW, from about 2700 m, towards the cloud-shrouded Feuerstein. The lake is the unmarked lake at 2500 m below the Grublferner.

A bit higher up, looking NNE towards the Habicht:

The skyline peak just R of center is the Innere Wetterspitze, the low point to the R of that is the Simmingjochl again, heading L are the Aus. W. and the Rotenspitz. And distant between them, the Habicht. I think. Mountains are pretty hard to do from photos.

Even the cairns are getting covered with snow. The fun part here is that you're walking over a boulder field, though which is traced one path which is (underneath all the snow) moderately level underfoot. But with all the path markers covered its easy to miss a twist of the path, at which point you start falling over the junk hidden under the snow.

Of course, I didn't take photos in 100% cloud so you don't get the right effect; but it was sufficiently hard to find the route that I nearly climbed the Gamssiptzl by mistake; which would have been a dreadful faux pas. Fortunately Jesus saved me:

(Although I admit, a little later when the cloud had cleared you'd have to be a total bozo to miss this clue). The route continues down into the snow bowl then up the snow and along the ridge ahead; the top of the easily visible portion is ~3200 m, and peering L of that you can just see a bit of rocky stuff which is nearly the summit (well, probably the SE summit, Signalgipfel) at ~3350 m. Again in cloud, after a period of whiteout with zero contrast such as I've never come across before, I stumbled across the welcome but sadly unphotogenic abandonded customs hut, before reaching the True Summit (on the left) and the Signalgipfel (on the right):

 

I offer the weather's apologies for not providing a nice clear blue sky to photograph both against. In my own defence, I hung around for about 15 mins hoping for a better pic of the AWS. The easiest way down from the summit to the South is very well marked and secured:

because its the route to the beautifully but absurdly situated Becherhaus or Rifugio Bicciere, which can't make up its mind if its Austrian or Italian. Its absurdly photogenic which is great if you're taking pictures, but if your aim is to actually get to the hut, you need to slog up 100 m or so:

In the distance the Botzer (wiki has a charmingly antique pic) which is now on my list. Its only 3250 m, but is across the fairly extensive UbeltalFerner. But I was going to the Mullerhutte:

so the easiest thing to do is to drop off the ridge onto the glacier, keeping close-ish to the ridge so that you can pretend that crevasses never reach to the edges, errm, and then follow someone else's tracks across because its an invariable rule that if someone else didn't fall into a hidden crevasse, then neither will you. Zoom in on the GPS trace in "satellite" view at the inexplicable zig at the end and you'll see.

The apparent high point on the skyline is the Wilder Pfaff, 3458 m, and apparently-lower-but-actually-higher is the Zuckerhutl, 3505 m. But those are stories for tomorrow. Finally, the weather was good enough that I could sit outside in the sunshine, at least briefly:

The Becherhaus and Mullerhutte stare at each other across the vale like Two Towers:

Video of Nurnburger to WF to Mullerhutte to W Pfaff to Z and descend the Sulzenauferner. Or you may prefer the Dent du Geant.

Diary

Stubai: Tuesday 2nd September: rest day

Yesterday: Lauterer See and Bremer to Nurnberger
Tomorrow: Wilder Freiger to the Muller Hutte

I'm the sole occupant of my eaves dorm - the weather doesn't make for a full house. I'm not awakened by shafts of sunlight puring in through the skylight, but this is no surprise. What to do with the day? My groaning body as well as the weather argues for a rest day. Apart from my thighs feeling strained, my left ankle bone rubbing against the boot is painful.

The reason for not having a rest day is: what will I do? Won't I be terribly bored? But I decide to turn that into a positive: having not really had a rest day for further back than I can remember, it will be good to see what happens.

Spend the morning reading Herodotus - Kindle is borked. Text M so she can google the reset. This was my lunch, nominally only an appetiser but I barely finished it:



4 pm: coffee and cake.

5:  Walk down path a ways from the hut for some fresh air and to get the phone some network. Ankle still hurts. text from M: hold down the power switch for *20* seconds: aha, that works.

6: Dinner: salad from buffet and BergSteigerEssen (spag bol; OK-unexciting-but-filling, which is what BSE is supposed to be). GastStaube full. Quick shower,because they're free.

Lay out kit for tomorrow, with the idea of being able to get up, b'fast and off with least delay. Set alarm for 6. Plan is to take a small selection and go up to the Muller hutte or some such over the Wilder Freiger, and have a shot at the Zuckerhutl, which I've wanted to do for ages, and now is the perfect chance - I have plenty of time before needing to meet up with M. this assumes conditions are plausible, which seems doubtful, but we'll see.

I don't have any other pix from this day. So here's some bog-cotton-grass from near the hutte from later on:

Stubai: Monday 1st September: Lauterer See and Bremer to Nurnberger

Yesterday: Habicht and Innsbrucker to Bremer
Tomorrow: rest day.

Overnight I'm in dorm #8 with some mixed US / UK types; its about a 5-person room. Sleep well. Awake about 7 to cries of "Its snowed!" Whilst I can admire their youthful enthusiasm I cannot share it; instead I quietly groan "Oh, great" to myself and sleep in for a bit. That, and the total cloud, precludes anything exciting for the day. I'd half-planned the xfer to the Nurnberger via the Aperer Feuerstein but I think that needs to be revised now (but see Saturday the 6th).

Last night I'd talked to some English-type folks who had done the "klettersteig" from the lake and they said it was easy. So I rather regretted not taking it, and wanted to go have a look so I'd know for the future; a perfect project for a cloudy morning. After a leisurely breakfast I toddled over; its 1 km and takes about half an hour or so each way. GPS track.

Here's a view from the lake back towards the hutte (notice how I'm inconsistent there? I use "hutte", but "lake" instead of "lac" or "see". Well, never mind):
 

You see the path wending across the slope and heading towards what looks like a rather unpleasant rock band. But in fact its fine; that's where the "klettersteig" is, of course.

Also, since I'm being self-indulgent, here's towards the lake:
 

As I'm sure you've noticed it was a fairly grey day. Here's my best shot at making the "difficult chimney" look as exciting as possible:



Since it really was a fairly narrow chimney its quite hard to photograph; here is a view looking up, from the start. As you can see, there's piles of ironmongery and you can see that with even more snow, it might be hard to climb or descend.

In fact, that's not the only tricky bit, there's also the "difficult slab". As you see from the below, its not all that difficult, or rather it wouldn't be in good conditions. But in the wet its smooth and slippy, and with a bit more snow (and last year there was lots and lots more snow) you'd have trouble finding the cables. And about 5-10 m to the right is a sharp drop-off, as show in the very top pic.



By 10:40 I'm back in the hutte, and I'm the only guest; everyone else has gone down (various people at breakfast had been talking about going over to the Nurnberger, which was what they actually wanted to do, but one by one they'd talked themselves out of it). The Guardienne looks rather dubious when I tell her I'm going across. I promise myself that I'll turn back if it looks iffy. But, not to build the tension too much, it all turns out to be fine. Before I leave, here's the Bremer in the snow:



And for those interested in ecology-in-action-in-the-mountains, here's a pic of the water waste processing reed beds at the hutte. Last year, while we'd been there, we'd watched with great interest while workmen drilled and then dynamited out some rock near the hutte, in preparation for this. Clearly the reeds haven't had time to grow properly yet.



The crossing to the Nurnberger is 6.4 km, took me 3:55, 500 m up and 600 m down, and I start just before 12. 2 hours to the Joch at 2754. GPS track. Going up to the pass I met a man coming down, and felt faintly disappointed not to be pioneering on the day. But having a fair guarantee that it was passable, and tracks in the snow, was helpful. On the other side I met a few others. Here's me at the Zollhutte at the pass:



Climbing up to the Joch was hot work, so I'm sitting around up there until I got chilly again. After that its down the rocks and the short-cut snow slope quite rapidly to the "Paradise" (view down from the col; view back up towards the col. Perhaps slightly more usefully, view from Nurnberger taken on the 3rd when the cloud was clear; you can just see the Zollhutte on the ridge line). The Paradies is lovely even in the snow, the sinuous line of the river is alluring:



Snow effects on the plants were fun:



But it was nice to get to the Nurnberger:

Stubai: Sunday 31st August: Habicht and Innsbrucker to Bremer

Yesterday: Arrival: Saturday 30th August
Tomorrow: Lauterer See and Bremer to Nurnberger

I covered the Habicht on the real blog, so I won't re-do that here. Having returned to the Innsbrucker I was moderately tired:
 

Although that photo is just a touch posed: its how I felt, certainly, but I'm actually awake enough to be holding the camera and pressing the button and carefully arranging the picture. Here are the diary entries:



and
 

There aren't any pics of the hut xfer, because it was like this:
   

Perhaps not the entire way, but for quite a lot of it. By 13:30 I'd had a kleines bier, followed by a hauswurst and a kaffee, the rain had eased to "gentle", and I'd decided that I'd go for it. The book time is 6-7 hours, obviously I could do better than that, and I hadn't really got it into my head yet that its September not July, the sun does set by 8 and its pretty well dark by 8:30. It had happened yesterday, of course, but somehow I pushed that away.

Anyway: no, I couldn't do it in less than book time. In the end, what with wandering lost in the dark, being tired from the morning's Habicht, and carrying a heavier-than-I-really-ought-to-have sac, it took me 7:20. Sometimes it didn't rain. Here's the GPS track for the bit before it ran out of battery. The GPS track runs out at "the signpost" where you get a choice of the "normal" path to the hut (which descends about 200 m, crosses the river, and then climbs again; see the start of the GPS trace from 2013 for details) and the "klettersteig" route (which traverses to the Lautersee, then traverses to the hutte, but after the See there's a "klettersteig" section. Now I hadn't given much thought to this - Miriam and I, coming the other way, hadn't done the klettersteig last year because it was too snowy, so I didn't know what it was like - but at 19;45 in the gathering dark I decided to be "good", heed the warnings - "nur fur " - and choose the "safe-n-sure-if-longer" normal route.

This was a mistake, for two reasons: firstly and known only in retrospect, the klettersteig is easy. Secondly and really-I-ought-to-have-remembered-in-advance the "normal" route isn't easy - its not at all like the valley path up to the Innsbrucker, it wends its way up through a rock band and is quite hard to find - even with frequent paint-markings - in the dark, by the light of a head torch, with rain spattering my glasses.

At the river I lost the path for a bit - this is easy to do, because you have to rock-hop over a wideish river. In the daylight, this would have been no problem. After casting around for 10 mins and refinding the path I found myself threading up through steepening slopes, sometimes rungs let into the rock (at least I knew I was on track) and seriously wondering if I would have to bivvy for the night. Which wouldn't have been fun as by next morning, there was snow. Happily, fear gave me strength and the bit I was somewhat dreading - regaining the 200 m I'd lost in descent to the river - was no problem at all. In the end, I saw the distant lights of the hutte outlining the cargo-lift pylons and stumbled in over their newly planted reed beds and was safe and comfy and warm and dry.

Oh, and I don't seem to have said much about the scenic quality of the path. It wasn't really a great day for scenic quality, as I said, and I spent time either hurrying on or feeling tired. The end result - after a few days when my mind had settled down - was a feeling of great triumph.

Stubai: Arrival: Saturday 30th August

Elsewhere: Stubai 2012 / Greece August 2014.

Previous: Packing List
Tomorrow: Stubai: Habicht and Innsbrucker to Bremer: Sunday 31st August

We begin with my reward at the end of the day. Now read on...




After completing the packing list I went to bed late on Friday night, in preparation for the morrow. The details (probably only readable by me) are in the Red Moleskine diary.
 



For a flight at 14:45 from Gatwick I needed to get up at 6:30 in order to avoid hassle and rush; but since this gave me coffee-drinking unpressured time at the airport and on the trains, this was fine. Somewhat unfortunately the flight was delayed (luggage, and then take-off slot loss) by about 1:30, and I missed a bus at Innsbruck station by less than a minute (there's another lesson to learn there, which is that the Airport bus and the Neustift bus actually cross somewhere around about the Arch. So its not necessary to get the Airport bus all the way to the Bahnhof, you can get off ~5 mins earlier; had I done that, I'd have caught the earlier bus), which meant that by the time (17:25) I got to Neder the Elferlifte had shut (17:00) so I couldn't execute Plan A, which had been to get the lift up (its the one the parapentists use, you see them in a cloud in fine weather; I've not taken it before) and then stroll down to the Karalm. I briefly considered Plan B: a taxi, but then chided myself for a wimp, shouldered my sac, and strode manfully up into the hills in a very gentle drizzle.

Distance: 12 km; height gain: 1400 m (~980 to ~2350); time: 3:45. GPS track.

As you can see, I went at a fair pace; back in the Tour de Mont Blanc days we considered ~1000 m elevation gain or loss to be about a days work. I was looking around, but not nearly as much as the end of last year when we descended the lovely Pinnistal in glorious sunshine. The pic (from not-very-high on the Habicht) shows the valley, the roadhead, and the path zig-zagging up. Much of the path you see is newly-resurfaced in near-white gravel which was terribly helpful as the sun set and darkness came on and I got the head torch out.



Just before the hut there was some confusion in darkness and cloud as I missed a zig and wondered where the path markers had gone. But I was in time for Apfelstrudel.

Stubai: packing list

(Saturday: arrival)

(See also: 2015)

Right, I'm going to write this down, so I never lose it again. Ho ho. TO MAYBE BUY WHEN I GET HOME: Stubaier Alpen alpin: Alpenvereinsführer für Hochalpenwanderer und Bergsteiger - Klier, Walter

Items marked with "=" are on the "should not have been taken" list.

* compass and whistle
* phone and charger
* D-80 and charger
* hat
* umbrella
* gaiters
* 30 m cord
* two ski sticks
* crampons
* walking boots
* spare glasses * 2
* sun/glacier glasses
* sun cream
* lip salve
* first aid kit
* money
* passport
* boarding passes
* tooth brush and soap
* towel
* head torch and spare
* turtle
* dayglo "buff"
* "bas" fleece hat
* "silk" balaclava
* E111 / EHIC medical card
* water bottle
* tiny swiss army penknife
* larger opinel
* nail scissors
= helmet
* raincoat (lightweight flimsy, and emergency backup super-flimsy)
* waterproof (ish, mostly for warmth for pre-dawn starts) trousers
* gloves times three: thin inners, fleecey, dachsteins
= books (don't go overboard like usual) "the old ways", Robert Macfarlane; "histories", Herodotus
= two ice axes (adzes; one climbing, one walking)
= big rucksac (macpac)
* daysac (lowe alpine spire 40)
* kindle (shares phone charger) loaded
* lightweight sac (exped 25 yellow)
* at least one bin liner and one spare
* maps (Alpenvereinskarte Hochstubai and Sellrain)
* garmin 610 watch and charger and usb plug
* foreign-to-uk adapter plug
* notebook (Moleskine red) and pen/cil
* a couple of small plastic bags
= pack of cards
* clothes: 2 * long tops; 1 tech t; 2 cotton t; 2 pairs thin socks; 1 pair thick; 4 pairs pants; shorts; running shorts; 2 * tracksters; 
* food - NO
* take sandals - NO

Total weight: 14 kg.

In the end I didn't take any food. This meant I got dwarf bread for breakfast and no lunch at all for a week; this was fine.

Things I should not have taken

Written afterwards.

=  700g - ice axe, the walking one
= 1900g - big rucksac (macpac)
=  750g - books
=  400g - helmet
=  100g - pack of cards
=  100g - second spare pair of glasses
=  400g - thermal top and bottom, excess spare t-shirt

Total: 4.4 kg. That's a lot. I'd have been better off with less than 10 kg on my back instead of more than 14. Having the "spare" large pack was nice, but not worth it. If I trim the books and the axe and the excess clothes, then everything fits into the Spire (and I have the Exped for the plane). Don't take 4 pairs of underpants; two are fine (one on, one off) and 3 pairs of thin socks at most; the thick socks were an unneeded luxury.

Also to be careful of: excess nick-nacks: the "traditional" orange and grey bags. Winnow those.