Next: Wilder Freiger to the Muller Hutte
I packed some stuff (too much as it turned out) and headed off to the Stubai. First stop is the Innsbrucker Hutte (interior pic, including the lovely huge ceramic stove) and first mountain is the Habicht, which SummitPost doesn't take too seriously, at least for the Voie Normale. Probably correctly; it isn't hard in decent conditions. Last year I failed after backing off in heavy snow conditions and thick cloud. I was about 270 m off the summit but couldn't see that on the ground, due to the cloud, and my old watch, unlike the new 610, wouldn't tell me my GPS height.
But this time I could see the mountain from the hut:
That's the East ridge above the initial grass I suppose, which is most of the route; you can't see the summit at this point. The route is well marked (if not covered in snow; I'll stop saying that) but somewhat unsatisfactory, in that it bobbles up the rather broad ridge and could really go almost anywhere; though of course its sensible to follow the marked and in places made route.
Looking back from nearly the start of the rock section down to the hut and the Kalkwand:
Around about here are a couple of plaques to remind you to take care:
And there are good views down into the Pinnistal with the long and zig-zaggy path up to the hut:
There's even some meteorology to be seen:
Above the ridge you start getting to the snow and can just see the summit cross:
And higher still, looking back, I can see my tracks across the snow and down to the hut:
Then the somewhat rubbly final ridge:
and a bit more:
to the top:
Sorry, no selfie. When I got back down the view was back to "normal":
Refs
* GPS track.
* Diary: Sat 1, Sat 2, Sun 1, Sun 2, Mon 1.
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Oft clouds.
Liked the pix.
Agree, great pix. Checked the list, comment x'd, spotted books, cards, extra pack, but the rest might have been the caution due to experience: youth=hubris. I always have trouble with art materials (aquarelles, postcard block, brush pen, less pigment better result, even in more comfortable circumstances, but of course I resist that).
The plaque above invokes some morbid humour, it says "Many ways lead to God - one is over the mountains"
[Thanks for the translation. My German is poor, and I'd carelessly misread it as the rather more uplifting "There are many ways over the mountains but only one way to God" -W]
I believe you are Christian. You are one of the best photographers. You understand that there is a source. I'm not Christian. I just use DMT.
Just spent a couple of weeks in Switzerland (La Fouly and Grindenwald). There wasn't any fresh snow up to 3200 metres (though we did get snowed on on one day at 2000m in September 2013 in the Lötschen Valley which is in the same vicinity).
Is there more/lower snow in the Stubai typically at this time of year?
[This was a very snowy / bad weather summer, or so the hut guardians said. And from what I recall of previous years, that was true. I did meet some people who said the weather was better to the West -W]