After 5 glorious days of IML winter training in the Oberjoch area with Glenmore Lodge, 5 eager IML aspirants were up early, keen to head out and put into practice the week's learnings. We were faced with challenging conditions:
A minimum of considerable avalanche risk at all altitudes and aspects.
A third hand verbal message about a 2000 euro fine for snowshoeing out of a ski resort.
A changed snow pack as the temperature had warmed up and the snowpack was wetter.
Some research was needed...
We checked out the chair lift south of Bad Hindelang. The route we'd done on day 3 was open but all others closed. We were briefing lured by toboganning but...
We headed to Bad Hindelang TIC to ask for more info about the fines. There were no information signs about it posted anywhere. The TIC person pointed out a couple of short low level routes that were OK, but with Fatmap's help we decided the upper slopes were too loaded. So...
We motored down to Sonthofen TIC, and were able to check our proposed route with the TIC person. She also recommended a cafe for our cultural research.
After some excitement finding a parking place in Hofen, we strapped on our snowshoes, did a transceiver group check and headed off. We stopped many times to check out tracks, mostly roe deer, badger and fox. We collected hair caught in barbed wire. We found some places deer had sheltered out of the weather. We checked out some trees including coppised rowan. The trails were fairly well broken in, so we made use of several opportunities to break new trail. We checked out the snow pack in several places; it was much heavier and wetter than during the week, and balling was a problem at times. We kept an eye out for terrain traps. There were a couple of places where we ruled out taking a short cut down a zig in the path, as the avalanche risk looked too great. We shared the navigation; the trails were well marked. The cafe at Sonthofner Hof (1142m) lived up to the recommendation. It even had its own cake balcony... In the afternoon the sun came out and increased the melting from the trees.
