Up and down an old favourite in Tyrol
After finding some surprisingly good snow in the area on Sunday, and as Monday was a public holiday here, my buddy Menno and I decided to go for a lap on an old favourite - the couloir on the north Face of Serles, which is probably most people's favourite mountain around Innsbruck and visible from basically everywhere in the city.
This is an old photo from years ago, but shows what you see of it from Nordkette (and the city) - the very obvious line on the right of the photo:
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The ascent starts off with an easy cruise along a forest track, then up through the trees towards the base of the couloir. Here just above the treeline:
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Many kick turns later (you can also skin up the other side and rap in, but I'm scared of heights so...):
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Then as the couloir narrows and steepens it's time to bootpack to the ridge. It pays to be cautious on this last section - there's a lot of loose rock overhead, which gets a lot of sun later in the season. Unsure if we'd find a nice spot to transition above, we took skins off (and put helmets on) before bootpacking up.
Pretty happy that Menno was happy to set the track haha!
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Though it was still pretty deep for me following:
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Me about to top out with a view towards Italy and the sunny side
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But first, let me take a selfie
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Menno spotting future lines (there's a cliff not far below):
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We clicked into skis about a metre below the ridge. The view down (PS the Countdown 104Ls are $$$):
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As he lead the bootpack, Menno went first. Snow was a mix of very nice wind-buffed powder and rather firm crust, and back again without much warning. Gradient is around 40° for the first pitch, maybe just over at the very top.
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My turn, finding the transition from crust to powder (or vice versa):
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From there on the gradient mellows out to 35° then 30° out through the couloir. Again a mix of nice old powder and strange crusts interspersed with a bit of rock and gravel, but with more room to see it was easier to stay on the nice snow for enjoyable skiing:
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Looking back up:
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On the flatter terrain at the bottom through the bushes and forest, which doesn't get any sun at all at this time year, the snow was still lovely old untracked powder back down to the forest road. An enjoyable wind down before another 15 minute skin up then 5 minute slide down the forest track for radler and strudel at the Gasthof.
Menno:
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My turn:
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All in all not a bad day out, and much better than it could have been given the rather dry winter so far!
