Stotzigen Firsten

Even an easy skitour can pack a punch. When Frieder and I went for perhaps the most popular mountain in the country we were thinking about a few hours workout. It turned out to be better than expected and way more interesting.

First, Realp region was the only place that weekend that had good snow and safe conditions. While we though we were smart to go there, so did another half a million people. So we almost got into a couple of fights already at the car park.

The much-needed cardio training.

By the time we were skinning up, the crowds have dispersed to different valleys and we were enjoying fun banter that usually acompanies our trips. On the summit we were pleasantly surprised that although the east face was completely tracked, the northern aspect had great powder with plenty of room to put some freshies in. So we dropped in and had fun making hero turns on steep yet stable slopes.

Frieder dropping in.

Frieder got overly excited though and went for a rather big jump which he didn't quite land. While no damage was done to his body, the skiboot got some serious beating. It got stuck in a weird position that was bad for skiing, but even worse for skinning up.

The fun part.

Since Frieder was reluctant to skin up on the way out, we decided to try out an alternative way down a ravine. Needless to say, ten minutes later we were stuck and had to skin back up and then do the regular skinning part. The boot didn't get ant better though, so we did a little surgery with a swiss army knife to get us back to the car. All in all, a fun day out and quite a bit more interesting than anticipated.

Trust us, we are engineers.