MELs' Blog

End of June I drove to our cameraman Thomas Andrillon in Annecy and worked with him on the finalization of the trailer from our Mongolian expedition.
It took us lots of hours but I’m really happy with the result!

Watch the trailer here:

Full movie coming out Fall 2013!

After having spent the weekend in Annecy I drove further to the Valais region, my summer destination until end of August…
I didn’t take the highway what would have been much faster. Instead I drove over Chamonix, went for a bike ride there, a magical place for me.

Here some impressions:

Les Drus…

Mt Blanc…

Aiguille du midi

…

After Lenzspitze I was ready for some biking. Summer was here and I ready for summer. Time to spend it with friends…

Thanks everybody for those cool moments we shared together!!!!

on tour with Alex, Waldi, Stef

nightride…

Mel

Pia

Thxxxx Pia for this birthday ride 🙂

Three alpine ladies on tour…

Lenzspitze, 4294 meters, Northeastface 490 meters long, constant steepness between 50-55 degrees, high alpine tour, challenging, beautiful, long, hard…

What an intense weekend…

Actually our friend Flo wanted to accompany us on our mission but due to the fact that things nearly always come differently than planned, Lea was the third girl in the team… I actually didn’t know her personally until the day we met @ Lizs’ place but knew that she is a very experienced mountaingirl & great skier… I totally have deep respect to both girls – awesome to know them & share great moments on the mountain together… Thank you girls, it was a pleasure and I’m sure that some guys are jealous on what we’ve done ;-)…

Saturday 6 a.m. Left Lizs’ place @ Dalaas to drive through beautiful Switzerland… Around 6 hours later we finally got to our starting point – Saas Fee in the valais region… It was a looooong drive…

As Saas Fee, 1820 m is a car-free zone, we had to park our car at the parking house, pack all our stuff and walk to the Hannigbahn… Thanks to Liz we could take our skis into the cable-car (usually not allowed) and save 400 altitude meters… The hiking up is never a problem but I hate to walk down and everybody of us was happy to save some meters, especially with the heavy weight on the back… Imagine to carry your skis, boots, all the climbing gear, skins, crampons etc for hours on your back… Not amusing. Hard work.

@ Saas Fee… Already scouting some lines to ski down and avoid hiking down…

on the way to Mischabelhütte

Liz and Lea with the heavy load on the back…

Liz while climbing… @ the back – Saas Fee

After hours of hiking & climbing on rock & snow, we finally reached the Mischabelhütte up on 3340 meters… No way to hike this path down again with all our stuff – we want to ski down and will find a way…

What a warm welcome from the hut owners Tom & Maria when we got there! The coolest hut crew ever up there!

More infos to the hut…

Lea and me were awfully tired, nearly fell asleep on the table but it would have been unpolite to go to bed when you have such nice, carrying people around… By the way, thanks Martin for the great food!

10 p.m. Finally to bed but hardly any sleep… Don’t know why. Couldn’t be the height – what else? To lazy to get up again and clear my bladder. That’s the reason? Or my dry mouth? Need something to drink, right now but I haven’t got anything. Trying to sleep in but can’t. It’s a hard life in the mountains…

3 a.m. Wake up call – finally when I could have slept, I have to get up again… But nobody is forcing me to. Should I stay or should I go. Of course I will accompany the girls and try to reach the summit with them.

4.15 a.m. Ready to go, headlamps on, climb above the hut, Hohbalmglacier, skis and crampons on, on the rope, what a beautiful surrounding and view, sun is rising soon and we are finally getting awake… At least I am the others are already.

Pic by Lea… Saas Fee in the background… Slowly getting awake…

wow…

onto the rope…

another wow…

what a beautiful morning…

Lenzspitze in an awesome light…

Quiet and peaceful… Two other rope-teams in front of us. Two French guys – a Snowboarder and skier and two tyrolean guys. The Frenchys’ are fast, the two tyrolean guys turn around just a few meters above the “Bergschrund”. Don’t know why…

We made a good decision of staying further right of the face, easier access over the “Bergschrund” and kept going… Step by step working our way up.

At around 4050 meters Lea decided to turn around… What a pity! But understandable! Not worth for her climbing up to the top and skiing down in mediocre turns. Especially at that point and at that time it didn’t look inviting to ski down there.

Now I had to carry the bloody rope… Liz wanted it to go up what I totally accepted and she would have carried it but I was closer to Lea, so I took it – no prob. Just that I didn’t have space for it in my backpack and had to carry it over my shoulder… A bit anoying. Again. Life is hard in the mountains 😉

Kept on climbing up that steep face… Tracks were already in there. But sank in the snow quite often. Warm temperature, soft snow but it got harder and harder.

The Frencies waited and waited up on top for the right skiing conditions, one turn from them meant a lot of sluff/snow onto our heads. Looked good when they went down, so my motivation was higher again to reach the summit and ski down.

It was not far anymore but the snow conditions got harder and harder… Tougher and more concentration needed when also Liz followed her Intuition and decided to turn around, climb down the face and ski from the point where Lea also put on her skis.

Now I was alone, all by myself… No, I didn’t want to climb down. I wanted to ski down. As none of the girls was in need of help or anything, I decided to keep on going. Step by step. Of course I was tired. After more than five hours of hiking and climbing what would you be? But putting the skis on here, right now, no chance. Better to keep going. And yes I made it. Up to the top of the Lenzspitze! A few meters below I had to make a skidepot, now climbing up over the rocks. Steep. Attention. Be careful Mel. But I wanted to see what’s behind. That was my motivation. So I kept climbing. No big cross or anything above. Just a very small ridge and a unbelievably beautiful view. Over to Dom and the other high peaks. Happy.

nearly up at the top…

climbing… no mistake allowed…

wow, what a stunning view!

Nadelhorn in the back…

Climbed the few meters back down to the skis. Got ready and still wanted to wait a couple more minutes to give Liz the chance of putting on her skis. Didn’t want to bring all the sluff down on her. Lea was still waiting in the sun, waiting for us girls to come…

My legs were tired. Fully concentrated though. Again, no mistake allowed. Take it easy and slow. First turn, rest. Second turn, rest. Hard but not fully icy up here, challenging skiing but okay.

Then it went on, somehow fluid but taking it easy. Tired. Worn out. Finally I’m down there. Liz is waiting above the Bergschrund and we ski down together… Down to Lea, down to the Mischabelhut again…

11 a.m. How good it felt to drink something and sit in the sun and relax for a couple of minutes. Thank you sooooo much Maria, Tom & Martin!!!! Really the coolest hut crew ever!!!

Time is running, we need to get down… No, don’t want to climb down, we’ll ski down. Snow is getting softer and softer but we manage to ski down until 2600 meters. Although a lot of wet avalanches follow us, it’s no problem at all… Time to put on normal shoes again and carry our stuff down the mountain…

the heavy load on the back again…

Ibex chilling in the sun…

made it nearly…

Back at the car, loooong drive back again, full of memories, intense weekend. Thank you Liz & Lea for the great company and for sharing this adventure!

And also thanks to the coolest hut Crew ever: Maria, Tom & Martin!

Now it’s really summertime and time for a change. Biking is on 😉

Enjoy life and take care!

Facts: Cima Presanella 3558m, Northface, Ice wall up to 58° steep, Presanellagroup Italy.

This is our story…

Due to the fact that there is still sooooo much snow on the mountains and the motivation is never ending, me and Liz decided to drive south and make an attempt of climbing and skiing the Northface of Presanella…

Two women on tour…

Drove to Bozen – Mendelpass – Stavel (close to Passo Tonale). There you can either start at the parking place in Stavel, 1360 m or have the option to drive up to Pozzi Alti, 1884m… We took option number two. Getting up there was already quite an adventure… Driving up a small, bumpy forrest road where you just hope that no other car is coming into your direction… Where to pass? No Chance…

Liz actually tried to call @ Rifugio Denza to ask if they are open or at least if there are blankets for the bivy… No chance to reach anyone… That’s Italy 😉 Love it there!

After an adventurous ride up the mountain we were not the only ones… Surprise, surprise… Liz speaks perfect italian, so now we knew that the rifugio would be open… Also good…

The weather forecast was right… Half way up to the hut it started to rain and thunderbolt accompanied us on our way up… We were lucky that we started to hike in our touring boots as there was still lots of snow, mud and water on the small hiking path… Just before it started to get dark, we reached the hut…

Crowded there and when the very friendly hut owner asked: “two women?”, we felt for a moment like little stars in the crowd of nearly just men… A rope team consisting of a man and woman is quite normal nowadays but if two women show up it’s always something special… The guys were interested in what our plans were and so we told them while eating our traveldinner…

As the rifugio was open, the bivy was locked and we stayed in the hut and shared the few hours with I guess 15 italians, where at least five of them were snorring like hell 😉 It’s always the same in a mass storage room – you can hardly sleep unless you sleep in before the crowd starts to snore 😉 hahhaa…

Around 1 a.m. the first Alarm clock started to ring at my neighbours place… Fail… But then at 3 a.m. the guys kept moving, starting to get ready and have breakfast downstairs… Liz and me took it easy, had our breakfast upstairs in peace, packed our stuff and started our hike at 4 a.m. I have never before had such a non-stressful start in the day… Nobody was hurrying, a very good vibe on the mountain while skinning up, talkative guys…

We were good in time, no rush, no hurry… Around 7 a.m. we were already at the bottom of the nearly 500 hm ice wall… By now a couple of other mountaineers were climbing up…

At 8 a.m. where the conditions were still very, very hard, two skiers came down and brought a lot of sluff and icy snow balls down… Of course they tried to avoid that but impossible… First Liz got hit by a snowball in the face… A minute later it was my turn… A cut in the lip and one of my glasses broken… And the best thing – I didn’t recognize it that one of my glasses were gone 😉 Just felt a little weird… And I guess I looked like a little weirdo from now on but nobody told me ;-)…

After 5 hours hike and climb we reached the summit of Cima Presanella… 9 a.m. Still sooooo early and the whole day in front of us… What an amazing view – two lucky girls standing on top of the summit…

the last few meters before the summit…

beautiful…

steep and deep…

Liz enjoying the beautiful view…

Liz and Mel…

After nearly an hour of sitting in the sun, studying the area and map, we started to get ready for the ski down… Skiing such steep faces is definetely a challenge, you have to be an experienced mountaineer for climbing up and additionally a very, very good skier because if you fail, you’re gone… Although it’s nothing new, Heini Holzer was one of the first famous steep skiers, I hope it’s gonna stay a small community because a lot of people tend to overestimate their abilities and that’s the wrong place for it…

Here are some snapshots from Lizs’ helmetcam while skiing down… Mine didn’t work… But camera view and the real experience differ anyway… Everything doesn’t look as steep or as hard as it actually is…

first flat turn before it got steep…

Liz on the way down…

Mel skiing down…

Quite good but still challenging conditions, especially in the shade of the face… Hard, harsh, tough… There were still three climbers in the wall, so we had to pay attention for them…

A ski sticking out in the middle of the face, down at the bottom the other ski and pole… What happened? We didn’t know until we skied further down and met two Italian guys… They asked for help and told us that a guy who skied the Northface by himself, crashed in the middle and slid the whole way down… Luckily they helped him, he broke his handwrist and was now hiking down to the hut… We took his backpack and skied to the hut… There we had a nice talk to the rifugio owner, such a helpful guy, who also is a professional mountain guide…

Our drinks at the hut tasted awesome and both of us had a big smile on our face… Proud of our achievement 🙂

We left Rifugio Denza, could ski a little further down until we had to repack our backpack, load up the heavy weight and hike down the remaining 400 altitude meters…

heavy load again on the back…

Summer time again…

a nice cool down on the way…

through the tunnel again…

What a day! What a possitive vibe on the mountain! Grande! Bella Italia!!!! It’s soooo much more relaxed here 🙂 Awesome!!!!

Thanks Liz for sharing this wonderful adventure – it will stay in my mind for a long time! So many things have happened within that short amount of time… Intense… And there are still some things I haven’t even mentioned…

Looking forward for more adventures outdoors…

Enjoy your life – live it, don’t dream about it!!!! 🙂

End of May… Back in Innsbruck where my homebase is and where most of my friends are… Good to be back and happy that I have so great friends… But just two days later I left to Easttyrol to see my family and share my moments with them… Also some days of silence, sorting out my thoughts from the past adventure in Mongolia… Hiking in the rain, exploring nature again and again…

After the rain the sun came out…

still sooooo much snow on the mountains!

taking a rest…

Since the 14th of May 2013 (good to remember as it’s my dad’s birthday) the North-South Connection between Northern Tyrol-Salzburg-Easttyrol is cut due to a massive rockslide. The so important Felbertauern street/pass is closed and it will take several month of construction work to reopen it again… So at the moment we have to drive over the Brennerpass, through the Pustertal valley to reach Matrei, my homeresort where I grew up…

http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/1401910/Felbertauern_Felssturz-zerstoert-Lawinengalerie

Nature has given a sign, a few days later in northern tyrol, Salzburg, Upper Austria & Germany with the tremendous floodings all over… Those are the moments where I really feel with the affected people who lost everything within minutes what they built up… But it’s great to see the human aspect, when tragedy happens, people come together and help…

We should all be happy and thankful for being healthy, having a home and enough to eat! You just don’t need a lot to be happy 🙂