Merano Weekend

Published on 2025-2-7 by Michael Stanton

I hiked up from Algund along the Algunder Waalweg to reach a bouldering area above the town. A man with a baby strapped to his front and a bouldering pad strapped to his back came by...along with his wife who had an identical arrangement!

After a steep hike in light forest populated by boulderers, I reached Vellau, a pleasant town. I continued steeply up trails that went by farmhouses to a trail junction leading to the Taufenscharte. At this point the snow was deep enough that I decided to turn around (1650 meters).

That made a day of about 1300 meters up and down. Fair enough!

The next day I set out from the lift station above Dorf Tirol for the hut below the Mutspitz (this hut is at a place called the Mutkopf). I had snowshoes, but it would probably have been better to have spikes and an ice axe. Shortly below the hut I met a nice party of three who lived near Bozen. We chatted a while and I passed them as they rested at the closed hut.

Above, I continued in snow. There was a boot track all the way to the summit, but it became steep and tiring in the upper part. Bad weather was approaching. Higher, I met some other folks and saw the party of three rest at an outcrop before turning around. I had the summit to myself, and I could see snow or rain coming in from the east. Time to head down! I tried with snowshoes for a while, but the terrain was too steep and unforgiving. I went carefully down and navigated the ice-rink below the Mutkopf, falling down only once!

Happily, I was able to get a ride down from the highest farmhouse where the party had parked their van. Yay! This was about 1500 meters up and 900 meters descent for the day.

Rain the next morning dissuaded me from doing more, so I headed home.