TR: solo Paznaun sidecountry

[Toby]

When: 6.2.07 (or 2.6.07 for you Americans)
Where: SE of Kappl i. Paznaun
Who: just me
What: a couple of laps up the sidecountry, opening my eyes to some stuff I'd missed the whole time I was there
Conditions: variable. Some corn, some ice. Good to crappy skinning, average to below average skiing.

I recently spent 4 weeks in Kappl im Paznauntal in Österreich. Great little place on which I'll do a TR/review shortly. I was there with my family so I didn't ever
have much time to spare but I got to stretch the legs a couple of times. On this day I got a day pass and after dropping the kids at ski school and hanging
around a bit set off at the crack of 11am. There is heaps of touring potential out of Kappl but no-one tours, at least not while I was there. On this trip I rode to
the top of the mountain, getting off the Alblittkopf lift and heading straight, then off to the right at the start of the Lattenabfahrt. I left the piste and followed
a summer traverse trail that accesses some nice lift-accessed off-piste. I traversed as far as I could until the traverse started to head uphill again, at around 2400m.

Geared up and ready to go:



Here's a widescreen version of the terrain I was going to hit:



There are 3 reasonable sized bowls and I ended up visiting 2 of them, but there were plenty of other lines I'd like to hit, especially in nice snow with a partner.
The first goal was to follow the obvious subridge up to a notch in the main ridge. I'd headed up here the week before but run out of time and skied back the way
I came more or less.

Once I got to the subridge I spotted a resident herd of gäms (sp?) just hanging out:



I'd seen a smaller bunch of them the week before. Unfortunately as I was getting out the camera I knocked over my pole and they heard me:

Going ...



... going ...



... gone ...



They would've spotted me pretty quickly anyway but maybe been a little more relaxed instead of bolting.

Looking back over my shoulder I took a couple of shots of the peak above my initial traverse:



I think it's called the Höhe Spitze. From the traverse out of the ski area you could boot up it and drop into that one big face but it's short vert. for mucho effort.

I got a little further along the ridge and my first line came into view:



I was heading up to the sharp V-notch at the far left of the picture on the main ridge then down the obvious line skier's left. You can see the gäms in the
lower right . They headed straight up the fall line and disappeared amongst the rocks.

After 1/2 hour or so I got to my first lunch spot:



It was at about 2750m. I unpacked and had a wurstsemmel mit käse washed down with water. I don't often have lunch with views like this:



That's looking ESE through to SW. Italy to the SE, Switzerland to the SW and Austria in the foreground. The picture doesn't really show it but there are some
massive glaciated peaks in the distant background. 10 steps up to the ridge behind and I got a nice view to the W through to N.



That's the Malfontal right there. There are 2 major bowls in the centre of the picture. The left hand one, the sunny peak at the back with the rocky ridge that
divides the bowl heading up to it is the Rendl of St. Anton. Lots of tracks heading down there at various stages of the time I was in Kappl. The next bowl to
the right has a deep notch/shoulder at the end of it. That's the Rendlscharte, easy access from St Anton. Again, lots of tracks at various times down it. The
Malfontal drainage leads out to Pettneu, next door to St. Anton, so it's easy sidecountry for them. In the distance over the Rendlscharte there's a large glacier
massif. I guess that's somewhere in east Switzerland. If I took a couple of steps further forward from this photo I got a nice view of Germany to the N too.
So that's 4 countries from one lunch spot - not bad.

Lunch finally over, I took a photo for posterity:



and headed down to the entrance of my first run:



It was 42° down until the flat lakey-looking area with an average of 34° or so down to where I was finishing above the ugly man-made structure. I think it's a wall
to gather water in the summer from the 3 bowls and funnel it down to a river.

I dug a pit to get an idea of conditions in the chute.



Same as elsewhere in the area there were several depth hoar layers sandwiched between ice up to 4" thick (the last one from Hurricane Kyrill that swept
through northern Europe a few weeks back bringing rain to 2500-3000m). But despite the dodgiest snowpack layup I've ever seen I couldn't get results, same as
at other times. After 30 taps with no result I smashed away at it destroying the top layer (and my hand) as you can see but the whole column remained strong.
Shear tests were came away with moderate to high effort too. No popping. Dunno.

Anyway, I decided to go and descended the first section, albeit cautiously:



Very, very grabby, slightly crunchy, slightly melted crust. Fun anyway. Second section was fun too:



The line went down between the rocky knoll and shadowy ridge behind it, then I cut across the bottom of the knoll to skin up again.

To be continued ...

[Toby]

... continued ...

Here was what lay in front
of me this time:



Lots of potential lines but a mistake - I'd meant to head up the left hand side of this bowl but traversed too far across. Oh well, this was a safer ridge to tour
anyway. I wanted the chute half in shade, half sun below the two big rocks on the ridge above.

Astute viewers would have spotted my late lunch spot in the last photo:



Someone built themselves a nice hut. Unfortunately it was locked. About now I checked my 2-way to find I'd forgotten to lock the buttons and it'd accidentally
changed channels in my pocket. When I called my wife to see if she'd been calling me the answer was "Only about 5,000 times." She thinks every time I go
off-piste or touring that means avalanches and if I wasn't answering the radio then I was buried and/or dead with carnivorous gäms picking at my bones. Logically.
She was happy to hear from me .

Views were nice again, especially on the ridge on the other side of the bowl to the ESE:





I had a quick second lunch but the wind was picking up and clouds heading in from the SW from an approaching cold front. This made the partially frozen freeze
crust freeze up again and meant crappy skinning.

I passed an interesting little focus point for the heat:



There were lots of little expansion/contraction cracks like this all over the place but they were all less than 1/2" deep.

I was sorta getting near the crux of my second leg, a big icy face, when this happened:



I think it was because the snow was so icy and the Trekkers so teh suck that I had to whack the skis sideways into the snow with every step on a lot of faces
otherwise I'd slide off down the hill. That or I forgot to check the screws ever (although I wasn't aware that particular one could or would ever fall out). Now
I was kinda stuck:



The flat light in this photo shows that it was cold and it was icy, I was standing on a 35° face and I had a downhill ski that wanted to go flat. After some
very slow and deliberate actions I got the skis and bindings off and kicked some toe holds and decided to boot the last little bit. I made it despite some hairy
sections and had to give up on the chute I wanted. Instead I chose this:



which was just skier's right of where I came up. Also 35° flattening to 30° in the runout. A lift is in line with the chute just below treeline so that was my target.

The light sucks but my line was down the middle here:



It was ice, but oh well.

I headed down:



My line is right down the middle of the picture, looker's right of the knoll. You can see Austria's hurting for snow this winter, and that's all above 2000m. It got
much, much worse lower down although luckily the Paznaun had enough up high for some fun.

Kappl im Paznauntal is a pretty fun area. I barely scratched the surface of the sidecountry. It'd be fun to hit it again with partners and time. Given good snow
conditions there are tons of options ranging from terrain that's safe in dangerous conditions through to burly lines and drops for the right day. That and you
can ski back to the lifts or the village at the end of the day.

Excuse the crappy stitching of panoramas. I got bored of doing it plus I suck at taking pictures in the first place. They don't really match but you get the idea.

[klar]

nice one. you shoulda stayed a week longer for some fresh snow (up high at least).

[Toby]

I got some decent snow while I was there. A few days of pow, a few days of corn. Nothing epic snowwise but there was almost no competition for any of the
terrain I was interested in so I had a lot of freedom. There were literally only 3 Norwegians to compete with and I only saw them a few times. Everyone else
was either interested in piste or flat stuff. The closest anyone else came to following me I was about to drop into a favourite run and a German snowboarder
and his girlfriend/wife followed me to the drop and he said in his best Hoch Deutsch "Ö, da ist ziemlich steil, viel steiler als wo wir gerade waren" or something
to which I replied under my breath extra cool "Ja, a bissl zu steil für di". He slid away, I dropped in, again extra cool, dropped a small rock band and then
proceeded with speed straight into more rocks then tumbled down them spectacularly smashing my ski . Luckily there weren't many spectators,
especially since I had to climb up and get the pole I lost.

Location was somewhere in the middle of this ridge:



Lots of fun here, despite the heavy bombing and all the debris. I saw literally no-one hit this ridge except the easy stuff looker's left down near the lift the whole
time I was here. My brother and I did it a few times, I did it lots of times alone and the Norwegians did it at least 3 times but that was it. It was the only
place to really stay soft the whole time I was there being in shadow most of the day. It gathered a lot of snow being a lee slope. It was 40°+ for almost the
whole ridge except right down near the lift where it was still about 30-35°. The only downside was the bombing but I can understand that. A lot of slabs ran
out almost onto the piste, or at least onto flat areas where a lot of people would "ski the deep powder". There were permanent bombing post and cable setups
strung along the ridge which meant you could hang onto them and lean out over to spot your line. Very convenient.

I should've PM'd you while I was there but I didn't really have computer access. Easy travel from Innsbruck to the Paznaun.

[AsheanMT]

So I was wondering how you plan to use your avalung with a full face helmet?

[Toby]

So I was wondering how you plan to use your avalung with a full face helmet?

With practice. It fits, just. If I jam it up there in an emergency it might not work/might hit the chinbar instead but it's only a few 100 extra grams so I don't mind the extra weight if there's potential help there. I found if I kind of throw it vertically upwards in the space between my chinbar and chin I can get it consistently. If I threw it more horizontally in a more natural action obviously no worky. But yeah, I practice when no one's looking.

[cramp]

Very nice. Kappl has definitely a lot of potential. And in comparison with St. Anton almost no one goes for the off-piste terrain ...

Amazing views as well. Thank you for sharing ...

[splat]

I'd give up a nut to be in a place like that right about now.

[LeeLau]

about time we got a TR from you. Nice work