There and back again

Adventures of Norbert

A winter traverse of the Totes Gebirge (Dead Mountains) in Austria for four days. Total isolation, not one other human, deep snow, spectacular landscape. One of the best trips I had for a long time.

The Totes Gebirge (Dead Mountains) is not famous for its huge mountains, nor for its steep walls, but for its waste area without any easy orientation point. It is more a high plateau than a mountain region. Traversing this area means taking good care for orientation, otherwise one might get lost easily.

We started with the lift in Ramsau, slided down a bit, and then we went off into the wilderness. A long day until we reached the Wildseehütte. But when we arrived, there we had a hard time finding the hut under all the snow. Finally we had to dig for quite some time to find the entrance and enter into the hut.

The next day saw deep fog and bad weather. We didn't want to remain completely locked in, so we slowly in carefully continued to the Appelhaus. Arrived there, we enjoyed some of the Schnaps that was available in the hut, and as the weather became better we started out exploring the next day's route without backpacks.

On the third day there was again spectacular weather and we followed the already made trails from the day before for the first hour, before continuing deep into the emptiness. Long hours later we arrived at the Pühringerhütte.

On the last day we choose to shorten our trip due to one lost day, and descended down to the Grundlsee.