2004 Stubai Alps Ski Tour - Part 1

Jim Frankenfield; snowman@csac.org; 1-877-604-0166

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The view back down the Oberbergtal from the Franz Senn hut (2149m). The bridge on the approach trail is visible, and the tower on the far right is for the material seil bahn. (When the main hut is open one can send their pack and supplies up on this cableway for a fee per kilogram. Many huts offer this service to summer high-season hikers, although not all are situated in a location where a cable can be run. These are rated for materials only and not for the transport of people.)

The Franz Senn hut is named after a "mountaineering pastor" who pioneered mountain tourism in Tirol and was instrumental in the founding of the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs. He was from Oetztal but was a priest in Neustift, the principal town in the Stubaital. The hut was built in 1885.

With its history and relatively low elevation the hut is a popular one and I arrived to find two others in the winter room already. A young guy from Poland who was hiking between huts at the lower mostly snow-free elevations and a man who had arrived from England that very day who planned to do a scramble of a climb which he was familiar with if it was clear enough of snow. (This was a year with very unsettled and cool spring weather and the route the hiker was continuing on crossed a pass which almost certainly had enough snowcover on its north side to render travel by foot very challenging and tiring. The route the other man was planning on faced the sun and probably was in better shape although the remaining snowfields were likely to have been larger than usual for June and soft.)

Franz Senn hut view

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