Otztal Day 1 – Alps Backcountry Skiing

Otztaler Alpen is a European Alps highground with a number of beautiful mountains at over 3,000 meters, many nestled in glowing white glaciers like they’re curled for the night in thick European bed quilts. Summits such as Weiskugel and Wildspitz, for example (see location map below). More, the region boasts dozens of famous huts you can connect in a variety of ways.

Lisa in Vent, Austria starting our version of an Otztal ski traverse. Vent is a formally tiny village that's been expanding due to nearby ski lifts. It's still less industrial than places just a few kilometers down the valley. Click all images to enlarge.

Our friend Ted Kerasote (Jackson, Wyoming denizen and author of best seller Merle’s Door) is crazy for European hut ski traverses. With route suggestions from Manfred Barthel, sage of the Tirol, Ted’s been after the Otztal area for a while. Turned out Lisa and I could join, so we did.

Heading up to Martin Busch hut from Vent. You start up the local backyard ski hill.

Day 1 of the trip (as we’d planned it) was a basic walk up an alpine valley to reach Martin Busch hut, where we’d spend two nights with climbing planned for day two. Not particularly exotic, yet since this is Europe and we don’t know our way around, an adventure nonetheless. The trip progressed with shaky weather and a few blue sky moments, short but sweet. We’ll file trip report posts over the next week so you guys can check out what we’ve been doing these past few days. We’ll be here in the EU for another week or so, with more tours planned and apparently better weather for at least a few days, so hopefully we’ll blog that as well.

Signs in town indicate your exit. Exhibiting a good case of GPS fever, I blew past this billboard direct up through someone's driveway, going for the direct route. Until Ted pointed out that it might be nice to use a bridge to cross the river instead of wading. The GPS would prove quite useful later, but common sense is not programmed into the Garmin software.

Up the valley from Vent, steep sides appear rather productive in terms of avalanches. Not enough snow to worry about today, on our side of the drain, anyway.

Quite a few slides had come down recently, well away from our route.

Before long we were above the timber. Otztal region yields huge areas of the alpine, wonderful when weather is good but difficult in whiteout conditions.

Just before the hut, planks were removed for a short section of wind blown scree. WildSnow Girl was still smiling, good sign.

Ted can smell the strudl from here.

Martin Busch is quite nice, a mixture of old and new, solid stone.

Busch Hutte stube, the hut was perhaps half full. The hut keepers were super, one friendly girl, a big fed looking cook, and a gruff Tyrolean fellow who shouted you down as he got your coffee; 'kaffee, you want kafee, YOU WANT KAFFEE? DON'T YOU HAVE ENOUGH KAFFEE?' Perfect way to wake up. And you should have heard the guy when Ted timidly asked if he could special order some rosti during the breakfast rush. That was NOT going to happen.

The dreaded lager (mass bunkroom) of the Busch hut is located in the basement next to the vaporous boot drying room. One can only imagine, which is what we did since we stayed in a room upstairs.

Kind of a basic day, but when you get going on one of these trips, your first days and hut nights feel truly special no matter how mundane. For Americans not used to the culture, it’s quite exciting to simply be in the same dining room as 30 other ski mountaineers of equal or better ability. You know they’ll be heading out the next day for all sorts of beautiful adventures, enjoying their Alps, and at the end of the day sliding into yet another hut for another bed and meal, with perhaps a spirited Tirolean hut keeper yelling, “fleisch, FLEISCH, YOU WANT FLEISCH!?”

Center of Google Map below shows the town of Vent, Austria, where we began our Otztal tour. The first day we toured southerly up the “approach route” from Vent to the Martin Busch Hutte. Just a few hours, about 5.5 km and 600 meters vert on a snow-covered shelf road.

Größere Kartenansicht