Raucheck up

13-10-12

Tennengebirge hills from Werfen

Bedroom view from Unterholz of Hohe Tauern national park

Having spent the night before in the Unterholz car park  I was able to make a relatively early start on the way up Raucheck (2430m P1463) the highest point in the Austrian Tennengebirge Alps. From the car park there is an obvious marked trail 32 that heads directly up the hillside past Alpenghutte Mahdegg-Alm and through the woods, then dwarf pine into the scree filled valley below the Thronleiter klettersteig ladder. And, for me, out of the mist.

First glimpse

On this first section there were two other parties - however they seemed to be heading for the various huts at lower altitudes rather than the summit.

I must confess that as I clambered up the klettersteig ladder - muttering to myself the maxim 'don't look down, don't look down' - I understood why. That ladder is steep and exposed.

Thronleiter

Above the ladder is more scree, before finally emerging onto a steep and extensive limestone pavement riddled with sink holes and other potential traps. With occasional patches of  fresh snow.

Looking across to Hochkonig

Raucheck summit 

Raucheck view

Another dreary summit cross

As ever in Austria, the summit is marked by a dreary cross spoiling the view. There were no recent entries in the logbook - although I did find Petter Borstadt's entry back in 2010.

Edelweisserhutte

On my descent, I called into the Edelweisserhutte and chatted with two Austrians who were planning to stay the night. They expressed surprise 1. that anyone else was up there in the weather, 2. that I was alone and 3. that I was English. When I explained that the weather would be seen as a nice day in GB, they laughed. I was only half-joking.


I also avoided the ladder and used the alternative path down into the scree.

Raucheck from Mitterfeldalm

Stolen parrot disappears in mist

11-10-12

Not a promising start

Switched countries again. Now I am back in Austria - however, the brilliant sunshine that I left last time I was here seems to have gone. So too have the crowds on every hill. For this one, the summit logbook showed I was the first person to make an entry for several days.
I started off in mist from a tiny car park (1338m) by a locked gate at the end of a forest road from Obervellach. After following the road around the next sharp bend I picked up a marked track nr.328 that continued through the woods.

Polinikhutte

Just as the track came out of the woods by a closed for the winter hut, Polinikhutte (1873m) I also came out, thankfully, from the mist. The sky above was not completely cloudless, by any means, but it was warmer and clearer than down in the valley.
The track continued through more woods than eventually turned into the usual dwarf pine and then heath and bare rock.

View from Polinikhutte

Like a cauldron

Only two hours to go

As I went higher, I entered into the next layer of cloud. And there were small patches of fresh snow from the previous day's rain. This made it interesting when I got to the bit where there were some occasional lengths of fixed rope - however, there were no real difficulties getting up on to the summit ridge. At that point the higher level of cloud came and went in the strong breeze so that occasionally there were views across to Großglockner. That is, if the lower level of cloud had not been obstructing the view.

Polinik summit ridge

Polinik summit

Dreary cross on summit

To get back to the start of the walk, I simply reversed the route, However, by the way, I had just bagged Polinik, another Ultra (P1580), the highest point in the eastern part of the Austrian Hohe Tauern national park and at 2784m the third highest mountain of the trip, so far. By the time I got back to the van it was dark as well as misty - and I slept the night in that little car park.

View from Polinik summit

The mighty Dolomiti

 08-10-12

Civetta from Alleghe

Civetta (3220m P1454)
My second highest mountain, ever - the highest of the trip, so far. Shame it is 46m short of being an Ultra and hence, it only counts as a Major. It is a fabulous mountain to climb and to look at.
I did consider using the Via ferrata degli Alleghesi route but realised that it would mean a very long day and there may not be enough daylight hours at this time of year. And, anyway the Via Normale VF was tough enough for me, thank you very much.

Pelmo

I knew that there was a lot of palaver about using the road up from Palafavera, so  opted instead to start from Alpe della Grava (1627m) at the end of a rough road through the forest.

Alpe della Grava

The rough track (trail 557)continues traversing  up the hill past the accessible road end until it reaches the foot of a lift to take provisions up to the near summit RifugioTorrani.  The signposts at this point are not as clear as I have grown to expect, however, the path goes up through dwarf pines to the foot of a large scree slope. The way across the scree slope is fairly obvious. There were still patches of last winter's snow at the top of the scree. It does not take long to get to the foot of the Via Normale. The via ferrata is fairly simple at first - however, there are a couple of sections where it gets quite steep and I did begin to worry about having to descend them on the return. At least one I vowed to try and find a way of avoiding when going down - there was what looked like a previously cabled way that had been inexplicably abandoned and looked a lot easier even without a fixed cable.
VF takes longer than mere walking (especially when there are patches of ice underfoot) so it took a while to reach the closed Rifugio Torrani (2984m) (although the winter room was open) and have some well needed food to restore my blood sugar levels.
From the rifugio the route is steep with scree and ice in places and I found it tiring - but not really difficult. And it was worth the effort, the view down to Alleghe and across the surrounding Dolomiti hills was breathtaking.
And, so was the way down - however my alternative to the final hard section of VF turned out to be quite easy, hurrah!

Lago Alleghe from summit

Civetta summit

Can you see my washing? All the Dolomiti campsites are shut and I needed a shower.

The naturists favourite mountain

 07-10-12

Col Nudo from Passo Valbona

Casera Venal

On the peakbagger website there are a couple of trip reports - including one by our own RHW - that talk of endless scree walking on this Ultra - Col Nudo (2472m P1645)
I braced myself for the forthcoming ordeal and set off from the end of the accessible unpaved road at Casera Venal (N46 12 02.6 E012 22 48.1) on track 965.
There was the usual pattern of forest, followed by a little bit of dwarf pine and then grass, rock and the aforementioned scree. 

Col Lastei

However, the path remained almost scree free all the way to the lower summit of Col Lastei. I could see paths on the map and on the ground that were well signposted but they were not headed for the summit so I ignored them. There was an alternative way that was signposted as VF - Ferrata Costacurta - but I didn't have my kit with me and had no idea of how difficult it would be.
Was I on the wrong hill? In a perverse sort of way I was disappointed that I wasn't involved in the 'two steps forward, one step back' struggle of uphill scree walking. Col Lastei was grass and limestone pavement.

Arete and awkward step

From Col Lastei there was a very narrow arete with one awkward step that I did not really wish to repeat on descent - the choice was a very steep drop on one side or a less steep drop with a lot of loose stone on the other. It wasn't until very near the summit that there was  any uphill scree walking. And it wasn't until this point I realised what RHW and others had done, they had come up the route marked as a winter ski trail on the map - blue track 6 through the Ricovero Naturale.

Col Nudo summit

Col Nudo summit and cross

The summit had the inevitable cross, but was nude of any signs of WW1.
However there was the added feature of my very own Brocken spectre. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken_spectre

Brocken spectre

Cima Sora Il Ciot

I was looking forward to using the scree as a quick way down off the mountain. My problem was that as I had not used the scree route on the way up and that it was shrouded in mist (sod's law being what it is - it was not misty before and after my descent of the scree) I could not just run down the scree and had to stop and check where I was going. I knew there were some steep crags amongst the scree.

Scree glorious scree - Ricovero Naturale

Fallen arch

Italian delicacy

Mussolini's monstrous mausoleum

06-10-12

Grappitti

The object for this day's summit involved rather a lot  more driving up and down tornantes than walking. Monte Grappa may be only 1775m high but it does have a prominence of P1456, which makes it a good vantage point. And it seems to have played a big part in the later years of WW1 when the Italians had been pushed back from the Isonzo line.
There is an awful lot of stuff on top of Grappa - including a large bronze battle plan showing where the two sides had ended up entrenched to the north of Grappa on 15 November 1918.  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Grappa

Grappa wall

At the lower top of the summit ridge, there is a derelict building and mast surrounded by a high fence that just begged to be scaled - so I did, before following the ridge back to the higher top. All along the ridge there were trenches cut into it on each side.

Grappa trench

 The main top is covered by an enormous monstrous mausoleum opened by Benito Mussolini in May 1934.

Where the original natural top was, is difficult to tell. There is a flag near the highest point of the grass within this monstrosity.

Grappa summit - with anyGOML's dream deterrent

Tunnel under the summit

Underneath the mausoleum there are the Italian headquarters left over from the battle of Mount Grappa. I explored some of the tunnels that riddle the hill and there were several cannons still in their original emplacements.

One wasted life - the closest name I could find to mine

Glorious, my arse.