By Richard, 09 September 2008
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In 1991, climbers found the body of a man in the ice of a glacier in the Otztal Alps. The 5600 year old "Otzti man" caused a sensation in anthropological circles. In 2008, some similarly decrepit old fossils from the history of VUWTC met in Innsbruck to retrace his steps. We started our trip at Obergurgler. Whatever you can say about tramping in Europe, they certainly have some cool names. We walked up a typically well formed “road” towards Hochwildhaus. Some typically efficient European thunder arrived just as we climbed onto the ridge. Of course it's the lightning you really have to worry about. Ben had it covered, he fled like a girl, except the girls staunched it out, so maybe he fled like something else. We all made it to the hutte alive, which was good, especially for the guy selling beers in the hut who sold us a lot of Weiss Bier. We had planned to cross the Gurgler Ferner (a glacier) and then cross a pass to the Martin Busche Hutte, in a parallel valley but the day dawned claggy, or rather hardly dawned at all, as it was blimmin dark at about 10am as we walked in circles down on the moraine. That sort of thing can stuff your trip in NZ, but we cut our losses and went back down the valley and caught a bus around to the next valley and walked up to Martin Busche Hutte. Happily we arrived at the same time as some Dutch alpinists who had gone the way we intended to go, took 14hrs and required a 20m abseil. This would have been trying on our 30m piece of string we had for glacier travel. The weather had turned mint, so we climbed Saykogel a 3000m high pile of teetering junk that wouldn't be out of place in the Canterbury Alps, and descended to the Hochjochferner (another glacier) looking up the pass where the ice man was found. Similaun pass I think it was. We decided not to go to the pass to look into Italy, and instead headed to Vernagthutte. At Vernagthutte Tim left to walk out alone, with a damaged eyeball, so the 4 of us climbed up the Guslaferner to a pass called Oberes-Guslarjoch. From here we had a stunning view of the huge ice field of the Gepatscherner. We put all four of us on the 30m rope, with two harnesses manufactured from slings. The plateau was awesome, and would be a good place to do some easy climbing. However, as we descended towards the Rauhekopfhutte we could see towers for chairlifts on the skyline. In Europe no part of the mountains is safe from commercial activity, and the national borders add an interesting dimension. Here the pylons march up from Italy, but the road up the other side comes from Austria. Pretty much trashes any wild feeling and makes even a grand ice plateau seem like a theme park. A beautiful days tramping took us over the Olgrubenjoch (a pass) and down to the Taschachaus, a huge hutte devoid of charm - and more damningly for a commercial enterprise - customer service. Then it was a long slog up alongside the white ice of the Taschachferner and a rapid descent of the Mittleberg glacier (again dodging ski developments) before getting caught on the Piztaler Jochl in another thunderstorm. Made for a quick descent to the Rettenbachtal valley and a bus home in the rain. Kathryn Clendon Ben Clendon Tim Baker Hannah McGregeor Richard Davies - scribe |