Thursday 17 July 1980 - diarist: Nick - Steinseehutte to camp outside Wurttemberger Hutte
This stint started at about 10 pm last night, when Martin reported from the comfort of his matratzenlager "There's someone out there". Four heads popped up to see a torch out on the hillside. Being responsible and British, Ruaridh was sent to tell the warden, who replied that there were six mad Dutchmen out there.
Apart from sleeping and trying to work out who was snoring very loudly, there was no more action until 6:30. Fruhstuck was at 7:00. We had some difficulty in getting across our wishes but finally got coffee / tea, bread, butter and jam.
We left the hut at
about 8:30, after Dave and Martin had paid by waving the OAV cards and shouting
"Danke schon", their only German vocabulary. I started off with three
pairs of socks on due to previous cold feet problems. However, I soon reverted
to two pairs due to overcrowding boot problems.
The ascent to
Gufelgrasjoch was fairly uneventful. We saw our soon to be acquainted friend
Rudolf (the snorer) ahead of us. We reached the R601 sign at the joch (2320 metres) and
followed Tuesday's footsteps, traversing around. Rudolf shouted up in German (for
he was in the bottom of the couloir) asking whether we could see any red marks.
Ruaridh (our only German speaker, and deaf as a post)
couldn't hear, so we were silent. Anyway, he decided to come up and join us, as
we said we'd been before, on Tuesday.
The cloud then came
down and we traversed virtually blind around and then up to the pass, Rudolf
following faithfully, mit keine eispickel. He was however, as Martin pointed
out, very sure footed.
We descended
fairly quickly into the next valley - then the sun hit us. All sorts of potions,
protectives and sunglasses were brought out. Rudolf wasn't looking too keen,
but didn't get his map out. We waded up to what Martin thought was the Rosskarscharte
- a nick in the ridge. We finally arrived to find ourselves with an excellent
view, including two chamois. Here we ate English cheddar, and realised
that we were slightly too high up. I nearly lost my glasses over an alp and pranged
my finger on a staple.
We descended in
style to the next valley, traversed around, seeing red splodges on the way. Finally,
the long haul up to the Gebandjochel. (On the way up, a small avalanche of
stones and old snow was seen. Also red snow from
When we got there and saw the view down to Wurttemberger Hutte, Rudolf finally looked happy. We celebrated with nuts, raisins, lip salve and more sun protectives.
A rather interesting path down to the hut, during which we spotted Medriolkopf for a possible expedition later in the day. We were greeted cheerfully by the hut warden who said we could camp anywhere, even right next to the hut - so we took her at her word, and camped about three feet away by a WWI memorial.
Rudolf booked his matratz, but we whizzed off up the Medriolkopf after brewing up. We started off in bright sunshine, but the cloud soon came down. As we headed up towards the col, we were whited out. We finally reached this col and saw the sign to Wurttemberger Haus about 10 yards away. On the way up, Martin had fallen inextricably down a hole and had to be dug out by Colin.
The hike up to
the summit was rather tricky as not much could be seen except a big drop off to
the right hand side. We followed red splodges where they were visible. The 'climb'
was graded 1 plus which, given the conditions, was probably about enough for us,
especially remembering our attempts on the Dremelspitz.
On finally reaching the top, frozen Mars bars were eaten and a log book was opened to discover that we were indeed the first people up since September 1979! 'The British Loony Expedition' recorded that there was very little to see, after having taken about an hour and a half to ascend.
The high part of
the descent was taken rather slowly, but then it was a run down through the
snow to keep warm. As we got nearer to the Wurttemberg Haus we discovered, as
we had suspected, that we had been dropped on by a large cloud which had not
affected those at the hut - most unfortunate. Even more so because as we sat
preparing our beef curry
Due to lack of calorie intake over the last few days, we decided to call the 'curry' a starter and went for another course in the hut. Excellent braising steak and gravy with noodles and beetroot was followed by a cold beer. Rather expensive, but that was to be expected as there's no 'seilbahn' at this hut.
Tomorrow's route was perused before retiring to 'zelten' and bed. Rather a chilly night with stars in the sky - I'm now definitely in the market for a good four-season sleeping bag!
And again, over
to you McP.
(plus 3 km up and down Medriol-kopf, shown on tomorrow's map)
2 comments:
The British Loony Expedition indeed. Mad as hatters!
I'd forgotten about the freeze-dried food we carried in catering-size packs. Just checked online to see that Mountain House AFD foods carry a 30-year taste guarantee. Food in the huts definitely preferred, even if we found it 'expensive' at the time.
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