Sump To Summit

Sam Snowdon wrote this piece for the Oxford Alpine Journal, and has given it to me to add to my blog.

On the weekend of 24^th June 2022, myself and my friend, David Cattell, departed Oxford on the long drive to the Écrins in France. Once aboard the ferry from Dover to Calais, we sat down and looked at detailed forecasts and quickly realised that not only were the Écrins a bad idea, but much of Switzerland was also a no-go for the week. All plans that had materialised quickly began to dissolve. After looking at different regions of the alps, we eventually found a small weather window in Austria, great! So, as soon as we docked in Calais, we redirected our gaze, added four hours onto the journey, let out a big sigh and drove in the direction of Innsbruck.

I won’t bore you with details of the journey however the stretch of road from Bavaria to Innsbruck was incredible. Perfect blue skies meant we were immersed in breath-taking views of the mountains and the excitement for the week ahead was quickly settling in. We arrived at Innsbruck late in the afternoon on Saturday so spent some time walking around the city and enjoying a couple of pints and some wiener schnitzel by the river. Our plan for Sunday was to do the Innsbruck Klettersteig which we could see perfectly outlined in the silhouette of the mountains some 2000m above the city.

We woke up later than expected on the Sunday and with a great deal of faffing (from me), we were eventually making our way our way to Hungerburg to catch the cable car up to Hafelekar Station. The via ferrata itself was pretty straightforward, allowing us to cover a lot of alpine terrain, and tick off several summits. We were blessed with amazing views down into Innsbruck as well as the surrounding Nordkette which is the mountain range that the ridge is a member of.

Due to the extortionate prices of the cable car, we agreed to buy a one-way ticket and walk back down to the van. Due to the late start, we were already pushed for time, so we had to pick up our feet if we were to make it back in time for a pint at the restaurant Seegrube before it closed. After refuelling the tank, we continued our walk back down to Innsbruck and then drove to Achensee for a relaxing swim followed by schnitzel number 2.

With the intention of summiting Großglockner (3,798m) on Tuesday morning, we managed to book a room at Erzherzog Johann Hütte (Adlersruhe) for the following evening. The hut sits at 3,500m on the flanks of the mountain so we had to set aside the majority of Monday for the approach. This meant we had an additional 2-hour journey south-east to Berg on the Sunday evening.

We awoke early on the Monday morning and checked the latest weather forecast for the region. They all gave us a perfect weather window to summit Großglockner and be back down at the van the following day before a front moved in, bringing with it cloudy weather. The only issue we would be facing today would be the fact that Europe was in the midst of a heatwave. With surprisingly little faff, we were soon on our way to Adlersruhe to try and beat most of the days heat.

For the entire duration, we had a perfect view of the mountain which helped to build this nervous excitement of summiting the following morning. Although we maintained a decent pace throughout, I could feel in my body that I was a long way away from the flat plains of Oxford. We reached the glacier (or what is left of it) after around 3 hours of hiking at which point, we had two options. We could either ascend a via ferrata and follow the ridge to the hut or we could traverse the glacier and meet the ridge higher up. As we were descending via the glacier in the morning, we decided to leave the glacier for now and take the via ferrata route. It seemed more of a blessing to be honest because the glacier was scattered with the effects of climate change. We had a moment to reflect on this which was quite sobering before continuing on our merry way.

The via ferrata led us onto a big slab (yay!) high above the glacier so we decided to rope up and have a couple of pieces of gear to hand for extra security.  This turned out to be a very good call because on our ascent up the slab, the cabling had become rusted and in large segments, had rusted through completely. Cool. We were close to the top of the slab by this point, so we continued and quickly joined the ridge. Big breath! The thin air was definitely beginning to take an effect on us…  

We were soon at the hut and almost just as quickly, a cloak of fog surrounded us so there was no chance to admire the view for the rest of the day. This was a shame because I was looking forward to viewing the sunset. We popped some pain killers to ward off the headache (effects of altitude, I promise), headed to the bar and enjoyed some beers whilst chatting with others in the hut. No schnitzel was consumed this evening ☹ but they served us an amazing beef stew.

We awoke at 4am after having 10 hours of blissful sleep (no joke!!) and joined the rest of the hut for a lovely continental breakfast whilst savouring the coming of dawn across Austria. The mountain is second to Mont Blanc in the alps with regards to its topographic isolation which meant that we had an incredible view across the alps. This, mixed with the sunrise, was absolutely breathtaking. However, this led to more faffing, and we had a glacier and another ridge to traverse before admiring any views.

Although we did feel energised and had acclimatised well, we decided to fall behind most of the groups to save being in the middle of the traffic jam up on the summit ridge. After all, us Brits do love a good queue. We traversed up the glacier in good time, at which point there were fixed ropes in place to climb to the summit ridge and the route is waymarked with huge poles. This meant that progress was relatively straight forward minus dodging those trying to push past everyone else. Once we were at the summit, being last of the first wave of climbers meant that we had some time in peace to admire the view from the top.

The descent took us back to the Adlersruhe hut and then we continued down the glacier and back to the valley floor. We arrived at one of the final mountain huts on our path just after lunch time, and the weather was gorgeous, so we stopped to soak up the rest of the sun with a pint in view of the mountain. It was a great feeling to be sat there, looking back on what we had achieved over the past 24 hours. The clouds came in and the curtains were drawn on a fantastic day.

It was a pretty large front that passed through as from that point on, thunderstorms had continuously rattled on through the night. The weather wasn’t looking too great for the remainder of the week, and we decided to sack off our other alpine pursuits. We opted to have a slow start to the day, eating lots of pastries and drinking lots of coffee whilst we drafted up some further plans. Suddenly the rain cleared up and the forecast looked promising for the rest of the day, so we decided to drive to the ‘Peter Kofler via ferrata’ in the Wipptal.

This was a quick but fun intermediate via ferrata that traversed along a cliff face with some great views along the Wipptal. Given all of the rain that had been falling over night, the cliff was surprisingly dry, and it offered some dramatic cloud formations within the valley. The highlight of the via ferrata has to be the finish where there are picnic tables and a well-stocked beverage box where one can sit with a beer whilst admiring the view down into the Wipptal and across to the Stubai alps above us.

As we were moving, we were formulating a new plan that would take us further into the Stubai alps. The ‘nicer’ weather was to stay with us until the afternoon of the following day, so we managed to book a room that same evening at the Sulzenauhütte which is located on the flanks of Wilder Freiger (3,419m).  It was a short drive away to Grawa Alm which is where we would leave the van.

As we passed into Stubaital, the heavens opened like I’ve never seen before, and it suddenly seemed like these plans were also falling through. We kept an eye on the weather and the rain was supposedly quickly passing over and that was to be the end of it. We could even look back into the sunny weather we had just left behind. Anyway, we carried on to Grawa Alm and sure enough, as soon as we arrived, the rain started to ease off.

We had agreed to move fastand light which Dave loved as that meant there was no faff from me, I was waiting for him this time! We were immediately graced with Grawa waterfall which at 85m wide and 180m long, is by far one of the most impressive waterfalls I have ever seen. Given all of the rain which had just fallen, the water was thundering down into the valley with tremendous force.

We ran up the side of the valley, close to the waterfall and we suddenly found ourselves in a glacial bowl. All of a sudden, having left the thundering Grawa falls behind us, everything went calm, and I suddenly felt like we had entered a garden of Eden. The rain clouds had begun to part and in the distance, at the end of the valley was the second most impressive waterfall I have ever seen. This was Sulzenaufall, at 200m tall.

Our path climbed steeply to the right of the falls and in no time, we were in the comfort of the Sulzenauhütte. This is a family-run hut, and they were very welcoming, had lots of stories to share about the place and the food they served was delicious. After food, we had some beers on the balcony whilst watching the sunset.

The next morning we set ourselves a tough goal of summiting and back down to the van in 7 hours. After a continental breakfast, we filled our sandwich bags with meat and cheese and were on our way for the final summit of the week. We began by running along a moraine ridge with the glacier hanging high above us. The original route up to Wilder Freiger was impassable due to the rapid retreat of the glacier in recent years. Just looking at the glacier you could see why that was the case. We traversed around a small lake before taking a scree slope up past the summits of Seescharte (2762m) and Gamsspitzl (3,052m). As we gained elevation, the view opened up across the Stubai alps and the dolomites beyond. Looking around at the surrounding summits made us feel like we were in the company of giants.   

We continued to follow the ridge up, crossing over rocky gaps where the glacier once was but has since retreated. We eventually gained the final summit ridge and the border of Austria and Italy. Unlucky for us, the cloud quickly enveloped us, so we made a quick dash back down below the cloud level and continued our descent back to the van. We stopped off en route at Sulzenauhütte for lunch and chose their daily soup which was a strange concoction of hot dogs, brine, and pasta. We filled our water bottles and began jogging back down to the van. We finished being only 30 minutes behind our original goal.

We drove to Achensee with the intention of having a final relaxing swim only for us to arrive in the midst of a thunderstorm. We decided to retreat to a local restaurant for schnitzel and to plan what was left of the holiday which turned out to be very little. The weather was going to be terrible for the day we had left so we decided to spend the day indoors checking out the Innsbruck climbing gym. Oh boy, when they say it’s the ‘Stacey’s mom’ of climbing gyms, they aren’t lying. We spent a good part of a day in there and barely scratched the surface, the place is huge! We quickly wrapped things up and started the long drive back to Oxford, making sure to stop off in Bavaria for one last schnitzel for the road.

Travelling here, I was a bit disappointed that we were not able to go to the Ecrin’s but had that not happened, we wouldn’t have had the incredible week we had in Austria. I feel like we came across a hidden gem and I cannot wait to return here one day. On the way home we had a happy ending to the holiday at Kristal.