funk~station

Yes, save back home! After a five day glacier tour, I am back and still alive. Carsten and I started snow shoeing in Galtür, Austria. After 5 hours (perceived 15 hours) we arrived at the base camp. Well, if you consider ‘droping dead’ in front of a hut arriving. Half of my bag was filled with food. Lesson learned: food can be super heavy.

Every day we got up at 6:00 and shortly later started the day tour.

Then we ascented, and ascented, … and walking is great, it frees your mind and lets you focus on the important things.

More than a thousand meters higher, we finally arrived at the summit. After having lunch, we prepared for the best part of the day: The snowboard-run down to the basecamp through the deepest powder snow with loads of airtime.

Another day, another summit.

One day we joined an instructor group for a day tour. Our guide found the prefect way around the crevasses of the glacier. However in the middle of the tour, the weather turned out to be so unfavorable, our guide decided to stop and return. Back at the base camp the group trained rescuing injured. These guys know pretty much all MacGyver tricks. They constructed sledges with nothing more than two skis, a snow shovel and a dozen ropes. Quite impressive.

Seriously tired, but trying to look casual.

On the summits I was just overwhelmed by the beautiful sceneries.

From a certain steepness on, buckling on one’s snowboard starts to become a problem.

During the days each person wore an person detector in case of avalanches. Of course we extensively trained searching people with the detector. For training purpose a person usually buried a sender and then second person searched for it. One of the guys made the worst mistake one can do during such a training. He buried his detector and forgot to switch it on! And these devices are super expensive. It resulted in 10 persons digging up a 10×10 meter snow field in order to find the device. We certainly know how to dig now.

Kind of lost in the glacier (I clearly state I was not involed in navigation).