Flying low in the Kaunertal

by Nayeli Urquiza-Haas

When I started planning my first hut-to-hut tour in the Austrian Alps back in February 2019, I didn’t really expect it would end in a free heli copter ride and to make it into the local news. This is not a classic story of alpinism gone wrong, an alpine rescue after falling in a crevasse or breaking an ankle taking a badly calculated step. It was the first time I planned a hut-to-hut tour in the Austrian Alps, and I was not going to leave anything to chance. But the weather threw up surprises at the end.

Living in the South of England back then, my experience of mountains had been limited to a few trips to North Wales and the Lake District. All I knew is I would start in Vent. Maps and guidebooks contain crucial data to start painting a picture in your head about the route and the terrain: is there scrambling involved, is there a glacier, how far is the next hut? What I had not expected, although a friend who was more experienced had noted later, was the human element. Huts are busy in the Summer season, and I needed to book far in advance.

Once I had figured out the Alpine hut booking system maze, some centralised and others booked directly with the hut guardians, I paired the information to the routes available. This exercise resembled route-reading in climbing: once I get to Vent, where is my next hut? The only hut with beds available had been Vernagthütte, a refuge perched at 2755m, located at the end of the Rofental Valley. The hut is an oasis of calm in between the Guslarferner and the Vernagtferner, approached in four hours after a gentle and slow ascent from the green valley floor to the grubby Alpine landscape. When I was planning the tour, remember, with no prior experience, the only nearby hut which still had beds in May had been Taschachhaus. The problem was that to reach the latter, we would have to cross two glaciers, the smaller Vernagtferner and the massive expanse of the Taschachferner. Although I would like to be more adventurous, it was clear that navigating the Taschachferner required considerably more experience than a day on Hellvellyn, so we had booked a mountain guide who would meet us at Vernagtferner and shepherd us to Taschachhaus. July had finally come and we made it to our first hut, Vernagthütte, and ventured on a short reconnaissance walk up to the lip of the glacier, before meeting our guide. Later that day, another walker in the hut had spooked my boyfriend about the route, saying it was too dangerous. Climate change and hot summers made the glaciers very unpredictable. These worries subsided after meeting Peter, our guide. He had the usual calm disposition of mountain guides: a visionary of the terrain, with a rugged face from spending hours under glare of the sun off the glacier. Although the route we had chosen was not commonly travelled in Summer, it was not considered high risk, at least no more than any other glacier-crossing tour in our times. Climate change has made mountaineering more treacherous, and the glaciers in Austria are not exempt. But there still seems to be a fair amount of traffic on both glaciers, as they are the main routes up to Wildspitze from Taschachhaus.

We began our journey at 04:00, trailing behind an alpine training group heading to Wildspitze. It was one of those perfect days, the red lights of the morning sun catching up on the uncanny shape of the Gross Vernagtferner, as if water had been swirling down into a hole but froze up into that shape. Our next challenge was walking along the snowy ridge towards the Petersenspitze (3484m), looking down at the imposing and steep wall of its North face. According to a local guide, it is one of the most beautiful ice-climbs in the area. After a short break at the summit we continued our way down, looking from a distance at the conga-lines heading up to Wildspitze. At 09:00, the sun was high, flooding the Taschachferner, a stunningly long glacial valley littered with crevasses, water-coloured in blue and black tones. We criss-crossed this shredded terrain and at one point my boyfriend sank into a small and shallow crevasse that was covered over by soft snow. His backpack stopped him in his tracks, fortunately too wide to fit into the ice-opening. By an hour or so later, we had traversed to the side of the glacier and climbed up the sliding moraine, until we eventually joined the path that would lead down to Taschachhaus (2434m).

Peter continued his walk down to the valley where he would bike back home. We, mere mortals, rested our feet and enjoyed the impressive views from Taschachhaus. Our journey continued the day after, heading down to Gepatschhaus (1928m) from where we would take a bus back to the train station and then the train to Innsbruck. The route followed the path up towards the mountain pass at Ölgrubenjoch (3039m), skirting around the Sexegertenferner. I had relied on descriptions from the guidebook as well the Outdooractive website, comparing the information, as well as checking every so often on the map and compass to make sure that we were heading in the right direction. By the time we reached Ölgrubenjoch, black clouds were forming behind us and in front of us, so we made haste to get to lower ground. The walk down followed an endless sea of moraine which eventually opened up to a paradise of flowers and alpine vegetation, and our final destination was clearly in sight.

Torrential rain began shortly after we arrived at Gepatschhaus, knocking out the electricity and forcing the hosts to serve dinner in the dark. The hut is wooden so candles were strictly forbidden. The next morning we started to suspect something was off as we saw a group of Austrian Red Cross workers having breakfast in the hut, talking to someone through their walkie-talkies. One of them gathered guests outside, announcing that mudslides had blocked the roads out of the Kaunertal, and that we would be evacuated by helicopter. This operation started quickly and in less than an hour a helicopter had made several trips back and forth from a field nearby to the nearest town, eventually evacuating 40 people, including us. The flight lasted less than five minutes, but flying low in a valley flanked by majestic mountains was an unexpected and impressive way to end my first tour in the Alps.

Alpine tarn on the way up to Ölgrubenjoch
Photos Grey O'Dwyer

River crossing on the path to the Gross Vernagtferner and the Petersenspitze

Alpine party on their way to Wildspitze

Crossing the Taschachferner

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