Day 1 Saturday

I arrived a day early for the course as the flight was cheaper and the possibility of an extra days skiing couldn't be resisted. I was not the only one who had arrived early so I teamed up with young Fiona and we skied a lot of Ischgl including nearly all the itinerant routes. Oh to be young again I couldn't keep up with her!

Day 2 Sunday

Course started, there were 11 of us on the ski touring and Rob and Simon were our guides. Martin and Phil guided the Ski Mountaineering course of 12.

We used the Galtur ski area for the day, a day pass 30 euro. The morning was spent seeing what we could and couldn't do. After lunch we were split into two groups and I was with Rob again, third trip with PYB and third time with Rob. On leaving the restaurant we headed off for some skiing practice and bagged our first peak Brelter Spitz.

Day 3 Monday

We spent the day over in the Ischgl ski area, some time was spent finding buried avalanche transceivers before the poor vis cleared just enough for us to make it to a col that would take us down to Kappl down what I think was the Grivalea Valley. Unfortunately it was not possible to get a map of the area, Rob had one of sorts and had been down the Valley in good visibility on Saturday. We arrived in Kappl just in time to get the free bus back to Galtur.

Due to the lake of map no real idea of the distance, The ski to the col was only about 0.5Km.

Day 4 Tuesday

The plan on going to bed for today was to get a snow cat lift up to the Silvresttastausee. But it had snowed all evening, all night and was still snowing & very windy. So we stayed at the Galtur ski area and practiced and practiced our powder skiing in high winds and poor vis. It was a worth while day and we all felt our off piste powder skiing had improved by the end of the day. And it was still snowing!

Day 5 Wednesday

It had stopped snowing by the morning but the cloud was low on the mountains. It was decided that all the courses would get into position to be able to do some hut to hutting provided the weather improved. If your not in position you can't do the business!
(By the way it was very civilised, we didn't have to vacate the hotel room even though we were out for 2 nights).
The overnight for all was to be the Heidelburger Hutte. Our team went straight there by snowcat taxi it cost us 16 euro each for the 10K ride, worth every cent.
After commandeering the best dormitory we did a short tour up Ils Calcuogns at 2792m, this was in high wind and poor visibility on the decent we waiting on several pitches for a long time before we could see where we were going. We still managed to get some good skiing in. We got back to the hutte just after the the other touring group had arrived and the mountaineers arrived a bit later.

Day 6 Thursday

Heiderberger Hutte - Jamtal Hutte

It had stopped being windy and stopped snowing by the morning. Our team decided to gamble that the weather forecast would be right and the weather would improve. So we booked beds in the Jamtal Hutte and headed off at 0820 still in poor vis but it was getting better by the hour and by 10:00 it was wall to wall sunshine for a few hours, (the gamble had paid off).We took our skis off to climb the last bit of Breite Krone 3079m arriving there at 13:00. We then headed to the Kreen Joch and found the snow heavy going in flat light for the decent to the Jamtal Hutte arriving there at 15:30 after some soup we practiced our crevasse rescue technique and it started snowing again. By the way the hut is one of the best I have ever been in, heated boot rack, spacious ski storage area and sinks in the dormitories.

Day 7 Friday

Jamtal - Gems Sp - Galtur

It snowed quite a bit over night but it was bright and clear in the morning as we set out for Gems SP at 08:15. The sun started to triggering quite a lot of small avalanches on East facing slopes, we were on the east side (west facing) of the Valley so OK, some found it a long hard slog up. There was a group a good way in front all the way, they left the summit and skied down as we got to the ski take off point. We reached the summit at 12:20 and spent a good 10 minutes there admiring the view and taking lots of photos. As we started our decent in great snow we discovered the previous group had descended down the track up and left the whole glassier to us WHOOPEE!!!! We savoured every pitch until we got below the glassier and then the snow got heavier by the time we reached the track from Jamtal back to Galtuthe the snow was very wet. We arrived back at the Hotel at just before 16:00

Day 8 Saturday

My flight home was not until early Sunday and my intention for today had been a leisurely day traveling to Zurich, But during debrief discussions it became apparent that Oliver's flight was Sunday and he had a room in the Hotel for the night. It took little persuasion to get me to do a short tour with him. After discussions it was agreed the short tour to spot 2330 was well within our capability and the only danger could be assessed before we got into it.

We had our lift pass and were 2nd in the queue waiting for the first lift to open at 0855. . After waiting for our final lift to open at 0830, 1st in queue this time, we finally started. On rounding the spur to descend into the Valley we could see that the danger area had already avalanched and there was no longer any danger, so we where clear to go. We topped out at 11:30 having seen many Chamois on the skin up. With time in hand we topped out at Pt2198 before skiing back into the ski area. We could see the weather was changing but we managed lunch outside at a restaurant. I left for Zurich at 16:15 in heavy rain, perfect timing.