Wednesday, April 24, 2013

pre-work ski tour for the last outing of the season (Hüenerchopf 2172m)

Late-season snow fall and bad weekend conditions left us contemplating a weekday option for a "pre-work" ski outing. Following a tip from www.skitouren.ch Andreas had a good idea to head to Hüenerchopf, a relatively small mountain near the border of the cantons of St. Gallen, Glarus, and Graubünden. We were hoping that the night would be clear so the freezing levels would dip low enough to freeze the surface for easy skinning but thaw enough in the morning for a nice forgiving ski down. We were shocked, however, to discover a "dry" parking area, especially since the trip report from just a few days prior stated that they skied almost all the way back to the car... The snow up was soft already and the short sleeve weather provided for some interesting glop on the way down. But the views were incredible and the top 500m or so were really fun on nearly perfect corn snow (a first for Romain). The "snow" down low was so wet that we had to just fully straightline in order to keep up any sort of speed (a first for me).... good times, a nice way to finish off the season and a really nice, safe peak near the city to keep in mind for next year... we finished the morning off with a lunch stop at Burger King (haven't eaten there in probably 10 years) and then it was off to work!

Romain is checking his GPS to make sure the lack of snow isn't due to a navigational error...


finally after 30 minutes of hiking in boots, continuous snow

a bunch of posers on a scenic snowfield





scenic ridge leading to the summit

signing the summit register and checking the vitals

prof. Teyssier explains the metaphysics of pre-work ski touring

Andreas is stoked about skiing off the summit... with the fabulous Churfristen in the background
Romain navigates the steep traverse


hurrah for corn








deep knee dip


I took these last two photos while skiing behind Andreas...