Most people will have heard of the Stubai Alps, but how many could locate the Alpi Breonie di Ponente? Not many, but it scarcely matters, as they are the same thing, near as damn it. We are in the Alto Adige or rather the Südtirol - the spoils of war granted to Italy under the Treaty of Saint Germain in 1919. During the fascist period, a policy of deliberate Italianisation was pursued by the authorities. This involved the cooption of language "experts" to dream up Italian equivalents to well-nigh all German place-names. Thus we obtained not only "Bressanone" for Brixen and "Bolzano" for Bozen, but also such wonderful concoctions as "Villabassa" (Niederdorf), "Rio di Pusteria" (Mühlenbach), or "Monte Croce di Comélico" (Kreuzberg) etc. etc.
Andy Hartley and I were making our way through this equivocal linguistic landscape en route for Masséria (Maiern) in the Val di Ridanna (Ridnauertal), our starting point for an all-out assault on just a few of the peaks in the main Stubai chain. I'd been to the Stubai once before, in the summer of 1977, when Carol and I did our Grand European Tour in our Ford Transit camping-van, with nine-month old Victoria strapped smilingly into her travel seat. Relunctantly acknowledging that parenthood might just put a bit of a crimp on my climbing activities, I'd cunningly arranged our itinerary so as to at least have the opportunity to "case" some of the more celebrated alpine valleys. I had recently acquired a copy of Walter Pause's "Klassische Alpengipfel". He listed no less than seven eligible peaks in the Stubai group alone. The area had to be checked out. We drove up the Stubai valley and camped near Ranalt, just opposite Maiern on the other side of the range in fact. I remember entertaining thoughts of knocking off Habicht (3277m) straight from the valley, but gallantly allowed myself to be persuaded otherwise! As it was, Andy and I had two Pause peaks on the list for our projected four day expedition. Pause is an enthusiastic proponent of that genre of high-flown purple prose, in German, which can invest even the most shapeless heap of scree-slag with a "wildromantisch" aura. Of one of our intended peaks he writes:
...den Wilder Freiger erkennt man sofort am alles überstrahlenden Gletscherplatt. Breit und mächtig glänzt es rechts der schwarzen Tribulaune, anziehend - auch wenn dem Gipfel die Eleganz der zugespitzten Form fehlt.
He was looking from the Austrian side. From our side the mountain looked a lot pointier. But we hadn't go there yet! By the time we'd got parked, had a bite of lunch and packed the gear, it was after two in the afternoon before we left Maiern (1419m). Still, allowing for our probable fitness deficit, Andy had proposed that, for our first half-day, we climb no further than the Teplitzer Hütte (2586m). Guide-book time: three-and-half hours. That should get us in nicely in time. I heaved my rucksack onto my shoulders. Despite what I fancied to be ruthless packing, it felt ominously heavy. Rope, harness, crampons, ice-axe. It soon adds up. But that's the price you pay for wanting to travel on glaciers. No point in complaining. We set off, settling rapidly into that rhythmic plod, which, in theory at least, patiently but remorselessly consumes height and distance. It was hot in the afternoon sun and we were grateful that the first part of the hike in was through dense forest - although it was steep enough as we followed the path up the true left bank of the mountain torrent. I'd carefully kept a small towel to hand and was very soon making good use of it to wipe the sweat pouring off my face. We emerged from the forest onto the Agglboden, a flat-bottomed alpine pasture of open and sunny aspect. We crossed the river and continued on up to the next level, a steep-sided gorge with an impressive drop down to the raging waters below. Now the climbing started in earnest. This was hard work. Plodding on, I was less and less able to consciously absorb the scene. One step, another step, one step, another step. We flopped down by a little stream to rest, seeking out what little shade there was as a respite from the merciless sun. All too soon we were continuing on our way again. Finally we made it to our next rest-place, the Grohmannhütte (2254m). Andy got there sufficiently ahead of me to be emerging from the hut with a couple of Apfelschorles just as I arrived. This was no gamesmanship though. I was finding it tough. We thankfully downed our drinks and continued stubbornly on up. Andy wasn't finding it easy either, but seemed to have a yard or so on me. The Teplitzer was not so far now, but that last bit was a steep pull. Keep going, slowly maybe, but don't stop. I was beginning to get cramps in my thighs. As the wind got up, I stopped to put on my jacket. Succumbing to temptation, I lay down for a while. What bliss! Dragging myself to my feet, I gritted my teeth for the last, seemingly interminable climb. Finally, mercifully, I was at the hut. I was just about done in. Finding our room, I collapsed on a bunk. Those first day hut grinds were never easy, but were they as bad as this? Probably, even certainly, but I had not been haunted by the anxiety that I might be getting past it. Training will cure lack of fitness, but not the effect of the years. We were well over the official time. Were we up to our ambitious three-and-a-bit-day programme?
Still, once we'd polished off our Knödelsuppe and Schweinebraten, morale began to improve and, further encouraged by a Weissbier or two, it became positively buoyant. We stepped outside to get our bearings. The mountain opposite the hut was clearly not the Zuckerhütl, as we had originally assumed, but rather the Sonklarspitze, the bigger mountain being hidden from our gaze. We could see our next day's goal, the Beckerhaus, the self-styled Wolkenschloss, perched melodramatically on its spectacular rock promintory. In the clarity of the evening light, the stratification of the mountain landscape became explicitly apparent. The scene at our level, where the clinging vegetation was still able to sustain a little life, retained a greenish hue. Next came a discrete band of warmly glowing, russet-coloured rock. Finally, the high peaks and glaciers in starkly contrasting black and white. It deserved to be painted in a semi-abstract style. All I could do was take a photograph. We turned in, resolving that next day, come what may, we would at least drag ourselves up to the Beckerhaus.
Andy had booked us in to the comparative luxury of a Zimmer, thus sparing us the mass grunting, coughing, snoring and worse of the Lager. This, and the fact that no alpine start was required, gave us the chance of a good night's rest. And, sure enough, waking the next morning, we felt a whole lot better. The weather was fair, with occasional clouds obscuring the summits. We breakfasted, packed and set off. We quickly settled in to a decent pace. This was more like it. We could progress steadily, while enjoying the scene around us. I was pleasantly surprised when we even managed to overtake one party: so we weren't the slowest pair on the mountain. We stopped for a rest above a steep scree-slope which looked dramatically down on a moraine lake of perfect aquamarine. We calculated it must in previous times have been an arm of the Ebener Ferner now, like all the alpine glaciers, in significant retreat. We pushed on, climbing and traversing until, slip-sliding down a mess of moraine, we reached a narrow tongue of the glacier. It was "dry", in other words, pure ice. Only 100 metres or so. Hardly worth putting on crampons. We teetered nervously across. There was no real distance to fall, but a slip and dead drop onto the hard ice was not an attractive proposition. We then had to scramble strenuously up the moraine on the far side, and after that there was little let-up. I was determined to keep going now. Silently, I repeated my mantra: kleine Schritte, nur nicht stehenbleiben. I was a little bit ahead of Andy at this stage, which afforded me the justification to stop to let him catch up. We rested briefly, had a drink and then attacked the final steep part up to the Beckerhaus (3190m). We were now above the 3000m mark, and I, at least, was beginning to feel it: the hollow feeling in the stomach, the sudden greedy panting, the heaviness in the legs. Andy seemed to be faring slightly better and went on ahead. I plodded on with frequent little rests, but eventually made it to the hut just a few minutes behind him. We were tired enough, but pleased at having managed it pretty much within guide-book time. A week or so of this and we would be properly fit. Only we didn't have even a week. This was no preparation. This was it.
According to our schedule we should be climbing the Wilder Freiger (3418m) that same afternoon. For the following day we had earmarked the Wilder Pfaff (3458m) and the Zuckerhütl (3505m) combined with a descent back down to the Teplitzer, in order, the next day, to have time to get back to the car and drive to Andy's place in Gera, near Santo Stefano in the heart of the Dolomites, and then, for me, on to Treviso airport and back to Brussels.
Meanwhile the Wolkenschloss was living up to its name. Looking out the window of the hut there was nothing but blank mist. Then it came on to hail. We retired to our bunks and promptly fell fast asleep. We woke an hour or so later hugely refreshed. With little enthusiasm we took a perfunctory look outside. There was still a lot of cloud about, but right where we were it seemed to be clearing. The decision was taken there and then. The Wilder Freiger was on! Within minutes we were on the ridge. Climbing with our lightened packs felt almost like flying. We opted to stay on the rocks, reserving the right to use the snow escalator on the way back down. At times, cloud threatened to boil up from the eastern corrie, but we climbed on in sunshine, negotiating our way around the various rock obstacles, pushing on up and up. Below the Signalkuppe we were welcomed by the reassuring prescence of fixed cables. This was a trade route, but in our little weather-window we had the place to ourselves. Up onto the summit of the Signalkuppe, topped by a mysterious confusion of what I presumed to be meteorological equipment. The Wilder Freiger proper was just a little bit further. We proceeded along a spectacular ridge, encountering, absurdly, a signpost indicating Achtung Landesgrenze. What sort of response was required of us? There was certainly little room for evasive action! And then, following a steep scramble up the final rocks, we were at the summit. Mere superlatives cannot begin to describe the gloriousness of our situation. All alone at the top of our mountain, bathed in sunshine, we looked out on a perfect sea of mist from which surged startling mountain peaks. It was exhilarating, a view as from an aeroplane, but much closer to hand. We were in it, a part of it, not just looking from outside. No mere satisfaction of curiosity, but a profound nourishing of what one can only call the soul. We tried to identify ranges and summits, but that somehow missed the point. "Even if we don't manage anything else, I'd be happy enough just with this." I agreed with Andy completely.
And that, in fact, is how it turned out. The next day turned cloudy and uncertain. After what we had experienced, we were not at all interested in a long and tiring day snow-plodding in the mist. We had a blissful day idling our way back down to Maiern and arrived in relaxed fashion back to Gera in the late afternoon. We could sincerely claim to have had a glimpse of that true spirit of mountaineering of which Himalayan explorer Tom Longstaff writes:
Mountaineering is but an expression of the basic instinct to explore the unknown... Since happiness is most often found by those who have learned to live in every moment of the present, none has such prodigal opportunities of attaining that as the traveller ... attainment of a set objective is but a secondary matter, the traveller should not anticipate the journey's end. So long as he loses consciousness of self, and is aware in all his senses of the present scene, almost any part of the world is as good as any other. Mountain or desert it is all one.
Andy Hartley and I were making our way through this equivocal linguistic landscape en route for Masséria (Maiern) in the Val di Ridanna (Ridnauertal), our starting point for an all-out assault on just a few of the peaks in the main Stubai chain. I'd been to the Stubai once before, in the summer of 1977, when Carol and I did our Grand European Tour in our Ford Transit camping-van, with nine-month old Victoria strapped smilingly into her travel seat. Relunctantly acknowledging that parenthood might just put a bit of a crimp on my climbing activities, I'd cunningly arranged our itinerary so as to at least have the opportunity to "case" some of the more celebrated alpine valleys. I had recently acquired a copy of Walter Pause's "Klassische Alpengipfel". He listed no less than seven eligible peaks in the Stubai group alone. The area had to be checked out. We drove up the Stubai valley and camped near Ranalt, just opposite Maiern on the other side of the range in fact. I remember entertaining thoughts of knocking off Habicht (3277m) straight from the valley, but gallantly allowed myself to be persuaded otherwise! As it was, Andy and I had two Pause peaks on the list for our projected four day expedition. Pause is an enthusiastic proponent of that genre of high-flown purple prose, in German, which can invest even the most shapeless heap of scree-slag with a "wildromantisch" aura. Of one of our intended peaks he writes:
...den Wilder Freiger erkennt man sofort am alles überstrahlenden Gletscherplatt. Breit und mächtig glänzt es rechts der schwarzen Tribulaune, anziehend - auch wenn dem Gipfel die Eleganz der zugespitzten Form fehlt.
He was looking from the Austrian side. From our side the mountain looked a lot pointier. But we hadn't go there yet! By the time we'd got parked, had a bite of lunch and packed the gear, it was after two in the afternoon before we left Maiern (1419m). Still, allowing for our probable fitness deficit, Andy had proposed that, for our first half-day, we climb no further than the Teplitzer Hütte (2586m). Guide-book time: three-and-half hours. That should get us in nicely in time. I heaved my rucksack onto my shoulders. Despite what I fancied to be ruthless packing, it felt ominously heavy. Rope, harness, crampons, ice-axe. It soon adds up. But that's the price you pay for wanting to travel on glaciers. No point in complaining. We set off, settling rapidly into that rhythmic plod, which, in theory at least, patiently but remorselessly consumes height and distance. It was hot in the afternoon sun and we were grateful that the first part of the hike in was through dense forest - although it was steep enough as we followed the path up the true left bank of the mountain torrent. I'd carefully kept a small towel to hand and was very soon making good use of it to wipe the sweat pouring off my face. We emerged from the forest onto the Agglboden, a flat-bottomed alpine pasture of open and sunny aspect. We crossed the river and continued on up to the next level, a steep-sided gorge with an impressive drop down to the raging waters below. Now the climbing started in earnest. This was hard work. Plodding on, I was less and less able to consciously absorb the scene. One step, another step, one step, another step. We flopped down by a little stream to rest, seeking out what little shade there was as a respite from the merciless sun. All too soon we were continuing on our way again. Finally we made it to our next rest-place, the Grohmannhütte (2254m). Andy got there sufficiently ahead of me to be emerging from the hut with a couple of Apfelschorles just as I arrived. This was no gamesmanship though. I was finding it tough. We thankfully downed our drinks and continued stubbornly on up. Andy wasn't finding it easy either, but seemed to have a yard or so on me. The Teplitzer was not so far now, but that last bit was a steep pull. Keep going, slowly maybe, but don't stop. I was beginning to get cramps in my thighs. As the wind got up, I stopped to put on my jacket. Succumbing to temptation, I lay down for a while. What bliss! Dragging myself to my feet, I gritted my teeth for the last, seemingly interminable climb. Finally, mercifully, I was at the hut. I was just about done in. Finding our room, I collapsed on a bunk. Those first day hut grinds were never easy, but were they as bad as this? Probably, even certainly, but I had not been haunted by the anxiety that I might be getting past it. Training will cure lack of fitness, but not the effect of the years. We were well over the official time. Were we up to our ambitious three-and-a-bit-day programme?
Still, once we'd polished off our Knödelsuppe and Schweinebraten, morale began to improve and, further encouraged by a Weissbier or two, it became positively buoyant. We stepped outside to get our bearings. The mountain opposite the hut was clearly not the Zuckerhütl, as we had originally assumed, but rather the Sonklarspitze, the bigger mountain being hidden from our gaze. We could see our next day's goal, the Beckerhaus, the self-styled Wolkenschloss, perched melodramatically on its spectacular rock promintory. In the clarity of the evening light, the stratification of the mountain landscape became explicitly apparent. The scene at our level, where the clinging vegetation was still able to sustain a little life, retained a greenish hue. Next came a discrete band of warmly glowing, russet-coloured rock. Finally, the high peaks and glaciers in starkly contrasting black and white. It deserved to be painted in a semi-abstract style. All I could do was take a photograph. We turned in, resolving that next day, come what may, we would at least drag ourselves up to the Beckerhaus.
Andy had booked us in to the comparative luxury of a Zimmer, thus sparing us the mass grunting, coughing, snoring and worse of the Lager. This, and the fact that no alpine start was required, gave us the chance of a good night's rest. And, sure enough, waking the next morning, we felt a whole lot better. The weather was fair, with occasional clouds obscuring the summits. We breakfasted, packed and set off. We quickly settled in to a decent pace. This was more like it. We could progress steadily, while enjoying the scene around us. I was pleasantly surprised when we even managed to overtake one party: so we weren't the slowest pair on the mountain. We stopped for a rest above a steep scree-slope which looked dramatically down on a moraine lake of perfect aquamarine. We calculated it must in previous times have been an arm of the Ebener Ferner now, like all the alpine glaciers, in significant retreat. We pushed on, climbing and traversing until, slip-sliding down a mess of moraine, we reached a narrow tongue of the glacier. It was "dry", in other words, pure ice. Only 100 metres or so. Hardly worth putting on crampons. We teetered nervously across. There was no real distance to fall, but a slip and dead drop onto the hard ice was not an attractive proposition. We then had to scramble strenuously up the moraine on the far side, and after that there was little let-up. I was determined to keep going now. Silently, I repeated my mantra: kleine Schritte, nur nicht stehenbleiben. I was a little bit ahead of Andy at this stage, which afforded me the justification to stop to let him catch up. We rested briefly, had a drink and then attacked the final steep part up to the Beckerhaus (3190m). We were now above the 3000m mark, and I, at least, was beginning to feel it: the hollow feeling in the stomach, the sudden greedy panting, the heaviness in the legs. Andy seemed to be faring slightly better and went on ahead. I plodded on with frequent little rests, but eventually made it to the hut just a few minutes behind him. We were tired enough, but pleased at having managed it pretty much within guide-book time. A week or so of this and we would be properly fit. Only we didn't have even a week. This was no preparation. This was it.
According to our schedule we should be climbing the Wilder Freiger (3418m) that same afternoon. For the following day we had earmarked the Wilder Pfaff (3458m) and the Zuckerhütl (3505m) combined with a descent back down to the Teplitzer, in order, the next day, to have time to get back to the car and drive to Andy's place in Gera, near Santo Stefano in the heart of the Dolomites, and then, for me, on to Treviso airport and back to Brussels.
Meanwhile the Wolkenschloss was living up to its name. Looking out the window of the hut there was nothing but blank mist. Then it came on to hail. We retired to our bunks and promptly fell fast asleep. We woke an hour or so later hugely refreshed. With little enthusiasm we took a perfunctory look outside. There was still a lot of cloud about, but right where we were it seemed to be clearing. The decision was taken there and then. The Wilder Freiger was on! Within minutes we were on the ridge. Climbing with our lightened packs felt almost like flying. We opted to stay on the rocks, reserving the right to use the snow escalator on the way back down. At times, cloud threatened to boil up from the eastern corrie, but we climbed on in sunshine, negotiating our way around the various rock obstacles, pushing on up and up. Below the Signalkuppe we were welcomed by the reassuring prescence of fixed cables. This was a trade route, but in our little weather-window we had the place to ourselves. Up onto the summit of the Signalkuppe, topped by a mysterious confusion of what I presumed to be meteorological equipment. The Wilder Freiger proper was just a little bit further. We proceeded along a spectacular ridge, encountering, absurdly, a signpost indicating Achtung Landesgrenze. What sort of response was required of us? There was certainly little room for evasive action! And then, following a steep scramble up the final rocks, we were at the summit. Mere superlatives cannot begin to describe the gloriousness of our situation. All alone at the top of our mountain, bathed in sunshine, we looked out on a perfect sea of mist from which surged startling mountain peaks. It was exhilarating, a view as from an aeroplane, but much closer to hand. We were in it, a part of it, not just looking from outside. No mere satisfaction of curiosity, but a profound nourishing of what one can only call the soul. We tried to identify ranges and summits, but that somehow missed the point. "Even if we don't manage anything else, I'd be happy enough just with this." I agreed with Andy completely.
And that, in fact, is how it turned out. The next day turned cloudy and uncertain. After what we had experienced, we were not at all interested in a long and tiring day snow-plodding in the mist. We had a blissful day idling our way back down to Maiern and arrived in relaxed fashion back to Gera in the late afternoon. We could sincerely claim to have had a glimpse of that true spirit of mountaineering of which Himalayan explorer Tom Longstaff writes:
Mountaineering is but an expression of the basic instinct to explore the unknown... Since happiness is most often found by those who have learned to live in every moment of the present, none has such prodigal opportunities of attaining that as the traveller ... attainment of a set objective is but a secondary matter, the traveller should not anticipate the journey's end. So long as he loses consciousness of self, and is aware in all his senses of the present scene, almost any part of the world is as good as any other. Mountain or desert it is all one.
posted by asbo at 11:22 AM
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