Ötztaler Alpen

A group of young women are standing on the glacier. One of the women is carefully lowered into a crevasse. She practises crevasse rescue with her rope team and climbs out of the crevasse with ice axes and crampons. The glacier is then surveyed with scientific equipment before returning to the expedition camp. So many women on a glacier? Even in times of legal equality, this is a rather rare sight. However, the idea of Girls* on Ice Austria (GOI) is not to be intimidated by this, but to go on an all-female expedition for this very reason.

For many ski tourers, the Wildspitze is a favourite classic in spring. The summit can be reached quickly via the Mittelbergjoch and the Taschachferner via the Pitztal glacier lifts. The only drawback of this tour: due to the very low gradient, it is not very rewarding in terms of downhill skiing. In terms of the descent, the tour via the Southcouloir is much more appealing (assuming you have the ability and experience to tackle steep slopes). This route takes you to the highest peak in Tyrol "by fair means" and by the most direct route.

I am passionate about skitour crossings. Stubai Alps, Zillertal Alps, Rätikon, Verwall, Silvretta, Hohe Tauern, Glarus, Uri, Bernese Alps. There are many skitour crossings, some of which I have already completed, some of which are still in my head. The best thing about them is that they are perfect for travelling by public transport and are therefore climate-friendly, as the start and end points are rarely the same. When travelling through valleys, things often turn out differently than planned and you may end up in a different valley than you originally thought. If you are travelling by public transport, there is no car waiting to take you home and the end point of the tour can be changed individually.

What do you do when winter doesn't really want to start, there is little fresh snow and the temperatures are actually too warm? Exactly, you take various Alpine Club maps, two good friends and other literature (e.g. Panico Ski Touring Guide Ötztal Alps) to start planning for spring at the end of December. Seeing something new again and experiencing nature in a different way was the aim of our short Ötztal ski crossing, which we undertook from 10. April to 13. April 2022.

The "Alliance for the Soul of the Alps", consisting of the ÖAV, Friends of Nature and WWF, and the DAV want to prevent the planned merger of the Ötztal and Pitztal glacier ski areas. The lift operators as well as the SPÖ and FPÖ hope that the so-called "glacier marriage" will boost the region's economy.

Wildspitze and Weißseespitze can now be climbed as short day tours from the nearby glacier ski areas. In 2017, these peaks can be reached by an ascent of significantly less than 1000 vertical meters, as you can read here in the PowderGuide freeride tours Weißseespitze and Wildspitze. 100 years ago, the highest peak in Tyrol and its western neighbor were still extensive "snowshoe hikes", which Franz Tursky reports on in the 6th part of the Anno dazumal series.

In the fifth part of Anno dazumal from 1916, Franz Tursky reports in two parts about past snowshoe trips in the Ötztal Alps. The article was printed in 1916 in Fraktur font and caused some problems for the Alpenwort project, as the Optical Characzer Recognition (OCR) caused some "fails" during digitization. So if you find errors in the text - you can be happy to be better than the software ;) In any case, we hope you enjoy the well-formulated stories about today's "high tour classics"!

Visible from afar, the Weißseespitze rises above the Kaunertal glacier ski area. The north face is often climbed in early summer and is also extremely popular with ice climbers.