Seilschaft

Rope team

The photo shows my rope team (minus myself, obviously) Julia and Michi at the summit of Monte Cevedale (3,769 m), supposedly the highest skiing mountain in the Ortler Alps, as you can skin up all the way to the summit cross, conditions permitting. Conditions permitted and we did.

After a brief break at the summit (with around -15°C) we had our first ski run of the day down the steep south-east slope of the mountain. At around 3,200 m we made Brotzeit, put our climbing skins on again, and scaled Palon de la Mare (3,703 m), the mountain in the background left of the photo.

Until then the weather was fine, but things got worse very quickly. Within minutes clouds engulfed the area of our ski descend along the Palon de la Mare glacier (with lots of huge crevasses). As our digital map was useless (the smartphone died because of the cold) and the visual range was reduced to approx. 10 m, we decided to do what every ski mountaineer hates: skiing down roped up (basically a snowplough all the way), guided by an analogue map, compass and altimeter - for 700 metres of altitude, no less. My thighs were almost coming off at the end, but everything went well.






"When it comes to getting us home, our shortcuts have a tendency to blow up in our faces." - (Star Trek: Voyager, S7xE6)