Heidelberger Hütte & Jamtal Hütte

This was the first day of a ski tour in the Silvretta region which is somewhere I’d never visited before. I was looking for a tour to hook up with and I recalled seeing a mail from John Stafford of the Eagle Ski Club suggesting a trip with the guide Andy Perkins. John confirmed a slot was still available so I met a group of other Eagles in Landeck on Saturday evening, in fact in a fluke of good timing I bumped into John at the station in Landeck-Zams as he arrived from Innsbruck and I stepped off the postbus from Ischgl. In another coincidence we were joined later by John How whom I’d met back in January at the cabane des Becs de Bosson near Zinal.

Sunday was spent skiing a little in the Ischgl area again so the guys who’d flown in from the UK could get their legs a little. A major bonus was that Jimmy Cliff was playing a concert on the slopes above Samnaun (CH), I’ve actually seen Jimmy Cliff in concert before in Switzerland at the Montreux festival in 2007. 


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It’s not snowed for a while now and it’s been peak holiday time so all the off-piste is totally tracked out, but it’s been cold and if you’re prepared to put some climbing in then there’s still some great snow to be found. I rode the lifts to the Bella Tolla and then climbed the south east side of the Bella Tolla, I started on skins but the hard icy snow soon needed ski crampons and even then I was struggling to make progress so I racked the skis and scrambled up to the ridge at the top. From there I’m rewarded with a view into the valley, it’s not untracked but it’s certainly not tracked out and the snow’s obviously pretty good.

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