2010/2011 Snow shoe hiking in the Alps

Places Austria and Italy. Carinthian Alps
Time & length December/January, 3 days
Partners Christian Bock
A short winter hike through the snowed up mountains in Southern Austria. The goal was to escape the loud New Year’s celebrations and to test some new pieces of gear at the same time.
The Carinthian mountains are the home of my good friend Christian – since I met him I’ve spent New Year’s at his family’s place and up in the nearby mountains. On the 31st of December we left the warm farmhouse to spend an unconventional New Year’s night in the tent high above the parties in the valley. With us we had a new Hilleberg Saivo which Christian wanted to take on his upcoming trip through Central Asia, also we planned on using it for mountaineering in Ladakh in July. Furthermore I wanted to test my new sleeping bag, the Western Mountaineering Versalite, which I had bought for my next Alaska trips. And last but not least I got a new pair of snow shoes, the MSR Lightning Ascents. With all that stuff and a good amount of self-made “Glühwein” we hiked uphill in order to find a good spot for the night. When the sun set our tent was already pitched and what can I say – it looked beautiful. Up there right on the border between Austria and Italy we had a beautiful night drinking and watching the ongoing fireworks down in the valley.

The next two days we hiked through the Italian part of the Carinthian Alps. The weather was great and as far as we could see there was nobody around us – pretty uncommon in this area. On the third day we stepped into fog which made the descent a bit difficult, but late at night we arrived back home – tired but in a good mood.

There is nothing more to say, it was just a nice little trip.