It s a mountain in the Bernina range of the Alps, located between Switzerland and Italy. And on 15th of May we were standing at the top of Piz Palü. We caught the window of a really nice weather, bluebird all day long.
Like always everything started on the road… Driving from Slovenia to Bernina pass in Switzerlans where we set up a tent, cooked dinner and went to sleep. Yep, we were exhausted from the whole day driving.
The next day we wake up at 6am and prepared everything for the day, high up on the mountain. We first took a cable car from the pass to the top of the ski slope, from here on we continued by foot.
First we had to ski down about 200 vertical meters, so we get to the glacier. When we reached the glacier, we put skins on our skis and started walking. Aprox. 1300 vertical meters was in front of us and te view so majestic that I could just stand there and watch all day long.
The ascent and later descent was on the glacier all the time. On the way up we felt the height a little bit, which we were gaining fast. Our bodies were not well acclimated to this height. We slept at 2,000 meters above sea level, then gained 1000 vertical meters in just a few minutes (cable car). Already at 3000 m, and then all the way to the 3901 m which is the highest point of Piz Palü. But it was not a big problem. 🙂
The glacier was amazing, walking past seracs, observing the crevasses from the safe distance… Smile was on my face all the time. 😀
For the last part of our climb we had to put our skis on the backpack. When we reached the top we were alone, probably because of the time, we were quite late. But it was even more amazing, all around us just mountains. And it was so quiet, there wasn’t even the slightest breeze on te top.
We skied from the top to bottom, it was really fun. We had all the types of snow, hardpacked form wind at the top, powder in the middle and later some crust and hard at the bottom. At the end we were quite exhausted, we made more than 20 km up and down and around 3000 vertical meters (up and down together).
Later in the day, what it’s left of it we went on a quick check of St. Moritz (it was nothing special, at least then) and drink a well deserved beer. Cheers! And happy Birthday Aleš! See ya soon on snow. 🙂
RangerJohn 