Mid November we went on a little splitboarding trip. We just wanted to get into the mountains again and shoot some photo’s for Patagonia. Early season on the glacier means navigating through the crevasses. The warm summer has been very tough on the glaciers in Austria and new crevasses opened up everywhere. Since the snow wasn’t that great, we took the time to explore some crevasses and it was impressive. Not a bad way to fresh up some skills before the season really starts.
Crevasse rescue
The first day we decided to rappel into a big crevasse and prussic out of it. We found a big crevasse, created a ‘dead man’ by burrying my splitboard and used that as an anchor. The crevasse was beautiful, it felt like a cathedral made out of blue ice. You immediately feel humbled once your inside.
Glacier travel
The next day we decided to go splitboarding up to the ???. The glacier was heavily crevassed and we had to navigate through the cracks and holes. To safely navigate the glacier we were roped up at all times. The snow bridges are very fragile this early in the season and being connected by a rope is the only safe way up. Almost at the top we decided to go for a different, smaller summit, but more exciting. Climbing up through the loose rocks we pulled out a couple of big boulders to clear the route. At the top there was a perfect spot to rappel down from and take some shots. Not a bad day…
Mountain hut
We stayed in the Braunschweiger hutte for the weekend. Located just outside of the skiarea it was the perfect spot to be away from the busy resort, but not lose too much time getting there. Having enough sleeping space and blankets, it was quite a comfortable place to start our splitboarding tours from.
Thanks Martine van der Hoorn and Tijn Vuijk for an awesome weekend and especially Sjoerd Wesselink for the great pictures.