Schrankogel (attempt)

Published on 2009-3-10 by Michael Stanton

Schrankogel (attempt)

March, 2009

Dan P. and I meant to ski to the Schrankogel in the Stubai Alps, via the Franz-Senn Huette. I knew it would be a long way, because the guidebook suggested it would take 3 hours to reach the Franz-Senn Huette, then 5 more hours to reach the summit. But we felt strong! We left the car at Seduk a bit after 8 am, and reached the Franz-Senn-Hütte in 2 hours and 15 minutes. I had some trouble with my new ski/skin combination: Silas Wild's old pink skins don't like to grip on icy trails. Once I fell off of a switchback and had a tough time righting myself. Oh well, eventually I got past this spot and the skins seemed to work better for the rest of the day.

Over a piece of pie at the Hut we thought about our options. Should we climb something closer? I felt like 5 more hours of powering up the mountains would leave me pretty wasted, but Dan was game and I was willing, so we took off up the long valley to the glacier.

After a long, tiring ascent we met some Czech guys near the turn off to the Wildgratscharte, a narrow pass we needed to climb through in order to drop onto another glacier and reach the Schrankogel. We looked at their map for confirmation, then headed up to the pass. We had to boot the final 100 feet to the pass, where we ran into a large group of French Army troops, learning mountain skills. They were very nice.

We saw the considerable distance still to reach the Schrankogel, and realized that I had no crampons and Dan had no headlamp. Those facts, combined with how tired I felt at this point led me to suggest going back. I was also hoping to get to enjoy the good powder snow before it froze up or got too heavy. So we turned back.

The ski down was great fun, but marred slightly by a really long flat section on the valley floor near the hut. Tiring! We reached the car around 4 pm, just as the weather got to it's very best: blue sky and sun.

18 miles round trip, 5600 feet elevation gain/loss.