2004 Stubai Alps Ski Tour - Part 1

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

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A view back up the Schwarzenbergferner which I skied down to reach the Amberger hut. On a convex roll in the center of the photo is an icefall (2800-2900m) - I got onto the glacier just above that from the viewers right side and skied the edge of the glacier, keeping to the viewers right of the icefall. (The tracks in the snow on the right are animal tracks. I saw a lot of these at almost every elevation but never saw any actual animals.)

Unfortunately the skiing conditions were rather poor. The first few turns I made were on nice firm supportable snow and were very promising. But just as I began to look forward to some quality skiing I began breaking through a crust. There had been a fairly significant amount of snowfall during the week or two before my tour, and the storms left with warm temperatures and an overcast night or two which saturated the layer of new snow. The surface was refreezing into a good crust which, earlier on the ascent, either supported me or cracked a bit in large sections around me. But as the day warmed, and for most of the day at lower elevations, this crust was breakable and the skis cut into it easily with every effort at a turn. So struggling through wide turns and traversing a lot were the order of the day through most of this section.

Schwarzenbergferner

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