Over the past weeks I had curated a list of unactivated summits that I can reach in from home within reasonable time.
I chose to attempt OE/VB-196 (“Äußerer Gweilkopf”, aka “Außergweilkopf”) due to its relatively low altitude (2406m), which allowed for a snow-free activation.
Austrian topo map
GPX track of ascent
GPX track of descent
Ascent
I started from St. Gallenkirch, which I reached in approximately 3h by train and bus. On the way there I decided to open the StreetComplete app and download the areas I will be hiking to. That way I could contribute to OSM if I had ample time.
The plan was to follow the hiking path west via Gweilmaisäß, Innergweilalpe and leave the trail shortly before Gweiljoch to head north towards the summit.
Alas, the hiking trail between Gweilmaisäß und Innergweilalpe is closed because construction work at the avananche barriers near the ridge between Gweilspitze and Außergweilkopf resulted in increased risk of falling rocks.
I was not deterred and left the trail at Gweilmaisäß to ascend directly towards Gweilspitze. That way I could follow the ridge and stay above the construction site. The ascent was steep, but I managed well on the grassy slope. A stick I picked up proved helpful for support. The activity of animals (I later saw a few mountain goats) left plenty steps in the steeper parts of the slope. Halfway up I wanted to check on my map if I’m going the right way, but realised I had forgotten to get the map onto my smartphone. Well, from memory I knew that I could not go wrong as long as I’m going up.
A bit below Gweilspitze I came across a well maintained path that leads the the mentioned construction site near the ridge. It would have been a lot easier to take that path, but since it’s not on the map I didn’t know about its existence.
Following this path I got to the ridge easily. Reaching the ridge is rewarded with great views and an interesting hike due west towards the summit.
It took me about 3h 50min to get from St. Gallenkirch to the summit.
Summit
The summit is fairly flat and thus has a rather large activation zone. After a bit of taking photos and looking for a good operating position, I found a great spot to set up my gear. While setting up the linked wire dipole for HF, I called on 2m FM on the HT a few times without success.
After setting up the HF gear I soon found another SOTA station on 20m SSB activating a summit on the other end of Austria and was able to contact them. During the contact my radio gave a high SWR warning, so I went to check my antenna. I wasn’t able to find anything visibly wrong with it but after a few cycles of lowering and raising the mast, changing to the 15m band and back, checking the wires and coax, I got a reasonable SWR again. I assume that the coax might be kinked near the feedpoint.
Anyway, I managed to make four more contacts on 20m SSB without self-spotting.
The weather was great throughout, but I see some dark clouds coming up from the south. The weather report predicted a bit of rain in the afternoon. I abandoned my thoughts of giving 2m SSB a shot, wanting to get off the summit before the rain starts.
Descent
Since I planned to descend to St. Antönien, Switzerland, I could start the descent in the direction of Gweiljoch. That way I saw that the originally planned ascent would be very steep, but probably still possible. From looking at the terrain I was not sure if I could descend on the west side of the ridge between the summit and Gweiljoch, so I checked the swisstopo app on my smartphone. I had plotted the descent to guestimate how long it would take. But to my horror I realised that I had forgotten to download the map for offline use. From memory I knew that I had planned to shortly leave the trail at one point for a shortcut. Without the map that could become a bit of a challenge.
Since Gweiljoch, where I would find a guidepost and a hiking trail to follow, was nearby I forgot the lack of maps for the moment, since I’ve often hiked the mountains without maps by following guideposts and trails.
It started to rain slightly just as I reached Gweiljoch. Happy to have found a trail to follow, I marched on towards Tilisunaalpe without putting my jacket on. A few minutes later I had to stop and put the jacket on anyway, because the intensity of the rain increased. I briefly considered donning the rain pants too but figured I’d rather get to the bottom of the valley quickly, before this hiking trail turns into a rivulet. Two or three switchbacks later I stopped again to put the rain pants on. The intensity of the rain kept increasing, but didn’t get too bad. However, about ten minutes after the rain started, a cold wind with very strong gusts set in. At least I wasn’t not going to be sweaty on the short ascents I still had to do.
My feet started to feel wet before I get to the bottom of the valley. Of course there is no bridge near where the hiking path gets to the creek “Tilisunabach”. After a short search I found a spot where I was able to jump across and almost forgot to refill my water bottle at the creek. I decided against going to Tilisunaalpe for a bit of shelter, since it would be a slight detour, as I knew from memory. Instead I followed an unmarked service road in the direction that I guessed would be roughly southwest.
My feet were soaked by now. The wind and rain have not decreased. It felt as though my left thigh is starting to get wet through the rain pants. I felt the need to check if my sense of direction is correct, so I got my smartphone out near a boulder that I hoped would provide a bit of shelter. Using the compass of the geocaching app, I was able to confirm that I was headed in a west-ish direction. I was not sure anymore if I needed to go west or south. I remembered that I could check the StreetComplete app, even though it had only a very basic map. But before I could do so, the raindrops took over the operation of my phone’s touchscreen. I put the phone away and continued walking. I got to a rockface near the road. Maybe that would provide enough shelter to operate the phone? It did so, enought to find out that I was going straight west and that I would find the hiking path I planned to take there. The phone got wet again, so I put it away and kept hiking.
After a few minutes the service road ended and I had before me a slight incline if I continued west. This fit what I remembered about the bit of the route that I planned to do off the hiking paths. But confirmation bias is a bitch, so I could be anyplace else, right? I start going offraod anyway. After a bit I found a good place to check the phone below a large boulder again. I was right on track.
Checking the watch I found that it’s been about 80 minutes since I left the summit. I usually take a snack break every 60ish minutes, but I didn’t feel like taking a break in this storm. Good thing I’ve eaten just before leaving the summit.
I was able to make out a small hut and a prominent signpost to my nortwest. Continuing west, I soon got onto a hiking path which I then followed north to said signpost. As I got closer, I noticed a second signpost. The signs were yellow, which means Switzerland must be nearby. Yay!
The signposts are located at Groubapass, the border between Austria and Switzerland. The place where I planned to get on the bus was on one of the signposts. No more reading of bad maps necessary.
Two steps after I passed the sign marking the border, I slipped and twisted my left ankle. As I landed on my bum, I felt a bit of nausea. Since when does that set in before the pain? Planting both feet on the ground and getting up slowly, I noticed a to my surprise and relief an absence of pain in my left ankle. Phew.
As I felt my backside for damaged clothes, I noticed that I was carrying around a bit of rainwater that hat pooled in the bottom of my backpack’s raincover. Isn’t that thing supposed to have a hole to drain the water? After draining the water manually, I continued the hike.
On the swiss side of the pass there were a few bits where the wind was all but absent due to the terrain. The rain seemed to lessen slightly as well. As I approached Partnunsee, the rain had almost stopped. I could see a bit of blue sky to the south. The outline of the sun became visible through the clouds. Noticing that I’m surrounded by impressive mountains, I started looking around and noticed blue sky behind me as well. Oh really?!
The rain soon stopped completely, so I took off my rain pants. I thought of changing into my spare socks, but they’d get wet from the shoes again anyway.
I got on the bus about 3.5h after I left the summit.
Lessons learned
- Maps added to my gear list
- Having the route memorised is very helpful
- My shoes are not as waterproof as I thought
