| viharnik19. 07. 2014 10:05:11 |
After divine vibrations of an extraordinary Guru puja I set off from in front of Genoa to the lesser-known, somewhat touristy hidden Pfeldertal valley.
The place is in the extreme SE part of Ötztal Alps, where in the larger village Moos on the main road over Timmelsjoch to Obergurgl a mountain road branches into this picturesque valley.
Pfelders-Plan settlement is at 1624m and quite a bit larger than e.g. Venta. Hotel houses are very nice, as is the surrounding area, which locals diligently maintain. Food is excellent typical Tyrolean with home-made meat dishes and also vegetable dishes, salads, desserts, walnut and jam pies and more. Nature is wonderful, very peaceful, with lots of waterfalls, larches and nice spots of lively pastures. One tourist offer is also a carriage ride with horse-drawn coach up the valley to Lazinser Hof, horse riding, MTB tours etc.
In winter Pfelders doesn't empty, new Karjochbahn gondola 2502m together with two lower drag lifts allows 900 vertical meters of great skiing on the NW slope of Sefiarspitze 2846m. In this area there are also some long valleys for excellent spring touring skiing, which is safe then. In winter this place is quite exposed to avalanches, snow this winter was only 8m in Pfelders, higher around 12m, so they had to haul snow out of the valley. The APP house owner interestingly said that Slovenians also come there in winter. In this place you can really rest very well, the highest peaks are within reach and due to SE-SW orientation without couloirs and excessive snowfields accessible to mountaineers with appropriate experience.
The path to the avalanche-devastated Stettiner hutte leads along the bottom of the long picturesque Pfeldertal valley all the way to the cirque. From there it ascends in numerous serpentines to the upper basin, then over two longer traverse snowfields to the hut at 2875m. The house mountain Hohe Wilde caused a huge avalanche that ripped off half of the Stettiner hut in winter 2013/14. Reconstruction will take 3 years with huge financial resources. The staff is still fully engaged after the severe disaster with kitchen service, but overnight stays are currently not possible.
Since the snow on the route was extremely slippery, the warden advised against the ascent to Hohe Wilde via the steep initial gully, which I had foreseen myself. Right then a rockfall occurred on the mountain, so I rerouted the tour to the lower, safer Grafspitze. The warden told me to be careful there too on the ascent. On Hohe Wilde and Hohe Weiße there were two fatal accidents in winter. At the lake I equipped myself with crampons and ice axe and proceeded on the traverse of the snow-gully-scarred mountain. In the steep section I advanced in zig-zag with full steps, since the crusty south snow did not allow safe direct walking with front points. Higher the ascent is even steeper, snow thinner, below a loose scree embankment the size of a small fist. If the surface broke through, walking would be too dangerous for slipping, so higher up in suitable snow depth I made a traverse to the initially rocky ridge with an intermediate difficult passage of the rock slab edge and ice to the ridgeline snow finish. From the hut they probably watched me with binoculars, as they shouted "op, op, op!" on the key section. The mountain Grafspitze already belongs to the Texelgruppe and continues in a collapsed pillar-like impassable ridge, which is about 50m higher than the forepeak where I arrived.
The tour to Stettiner Hutte from Pfelders is 4h 30min long, with intermediate ascents to surrounding peaks it requires a very tough mountaineer for a one-day ascent. On the way back I made a nice stop at Lazinser Hof in the wonderful cirque environment of the valley . I stayed in Apartment Wiesental at the Ennermoser family, Pfelders 28 (35eur mit fruhstuck/tag).
http://www.pension-wiesental.it/
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