It was quite cold and snowy during the last few days (mid September 2017), so I took the chance and drove up to Klausen Pass (1930m) and headed up towards Clariden (3276m), a popular spring ski touring mountain with some climbing (tour report here).

As the slopes towards Clariden are North-facing, the snow does not melt qickly (in fall and spring) even if the sun comes out. At about 2850m the glacier starts. There now more crevasses than there used to be, but the glacier seems very safe if one steers away from areas with crevasses.

I skinned up directly from the pass, but anticipated that skiing down on the 10-15cm of snow might be tricky on the way back.

At 2400m snow levels increased quickly and soon I was plowing through 50cm (almost 2 feet) of powder! It looked like winter, unbelievable. It was tough work to skin up in that snow and my fitness is not the best at the moment.

The glacier starts at around 2800m and I headed up to 3000m until I was able to look over the South side. This was enough for even though conditions to climb to the top looked quite good, but this would taken another 1 hour.

Skiing was good to great with some nice powder (with no other track obviously). Further down it got sloshy and rocky!

Have a great fall! Uli Geilinger