Excursion
After seven consecutive days of lectures, both students and staff were dying for some diversion, and luckily the weather looked fair enough for an exhilarating excursion into the Oetztaler Alps on Wednesday, September 21st.
At 8.00AM, a long line of larger and smaller cars winded their way up in the Schnals valley towards the pretty ugly ski-resort of Kurzras. When we arrived at the cable car, that would bring us to an altitude of 3200 metres, the few summer skiers must have been overwhelmed by the invasion of 40 glaciologists into the cable car. A restaurant and the splendid Oetzi Live Experience Gallery were located at the cable-car terminus. Thanks to our very knowledgeable guide (and our interpreter Georg), we learned a lot about the fate of Oetzi, where he lived, how he died and how he was preserved so well in the ice for over 5000 years.
A gentle downhill walk over the Hochjochferner eventually led us to an admittedly unspectacular display of striae and pseudo-roches-moutonnees, where Arjen could show his geomorphology skills in practice. Some of the students followed Georg down into a subglacial cave, part of the drainage system of the Hochjochferner. Around 12.00AM, we arrived at the Bella Vista mountain hut, where we enjoyed a genuine mountain meal.
From the mountain hut, a path led up for about 400 altitude metres into the fog, towards the ridge at the eastside of the Hintereisferner, one of the best-monitored glaciers in the world. If we believe the stories, this glacier is a magnificent sight, but the very persistent fog prevented us from seeing it properly. About half of the group descended directly to the Bella Vista hut, while the other half proceeded together with Georg over the ridge towards the south, over the small summit of Teufelsegg.
On the way down, some of us spotted a herd of mountain goats. The sight of the Steinschlagspitze was definetly impressive. After some refreshments down in Kurzras, all of us went back to Karthaus after a well-deserved and spectacular day.
Photos of the excursion are included in the Official Karthaus 2005 Picture Gallery.