3 Day Advanced Camp Kelchsau
Beginning of this week was our advanced camp that took place in 'Kelchsau'. We began the hike up to the 'Bamberger Hütte' (which was our base for the next 3 days) feeling a little uncertain as to whether we would find any powder after having such warm temperatures and no snow fall for a while.
Our first 650 vertical meters toward the 'Bamberger Hütte' was all through wooded forrest and being temporarily blinded by all the trees in our view, we couldn't see the hut or how conditions were ahead.
However once we reached the hut everything opened up and we were able to see the possibilities and different options available for us to ride, which quickly settled any uncertainties we had at the start of the hike up.
Day 1
After our re fuel break at the end of the hike up, we set off to get our first lines of the day. After scoping our some great looking chutes just on the opposite side to the hut naturally we made our way over, the first chute was fun to ride and one is never enough, we had caught the bug and were desperate to find some more, and so our day began to unfold!
Day 2
First goal of the day was to reach the top of 'Tristkopf', a gnarly looking pyramid shaped mountain, with a north facing bowl where we were hoping to find some powder. The hike up was easy going until we reached the top section, which was south east facing with a mixture of snow and ice, this left us with no other options then to put on crampons and then head to the top.
After the obligatory peak photo we began the run down, and as we'd hoped the bowl was full of powder!
With such great conditions and after riding down a great chute we were hungry for more. We then hiked towards 'Aleitenspitze' to do some steeper faces we had checked out from the other side of the valley earlier.
Heading to our next line we hiked up a south east facing slope where the temperatures felt like a summers day! Despite the heat it was well worth the hike as the east face had a little cornice at the top which allowed us to drop in off it! And of course like big kids in our natural playground we had huge smiles on our faces from dropping in off the cornice, all the way down!
To top it off the snow was great, if someone had have told us this as we started our hike on the first day we would've found it hard to believe!
Day 3
The last day of the camp started a little slower than usual.. I put this down to a lot of liquid grapes that were consumed by everyone the night before ;)
Despite the slow start we hiked all the way to the top of 'Schafsiedl' (The key to this hike was hydration, after the night before!) The weather was warm again and as we reached the top to make a break, we let our skin (which resembles raw chicken meat) enjoy some much needed sun before we made our last run of this weeks camp down towards the valley.
Although compared to last year, we have much less snow around we managed to find some amazing runs in 'Kelchsau', and proves to us that our decision to come here every year is always the right one. The potential of terrain here is insane! And made for another brilliant camp!
Stay Safe!
Gerwin
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