This year in August I was in HB9 for a holiday, mostly for hiking and SOTA activations.
I don’t know about my possibilities for SOTA in HB9 in the future. So may be it was my farewell from SOTA there overall or, with some luck, only for 2021.
For the last SOTA hike I was searching for a fine unique summit, not so far away from my holiday room and fitting to my limited hiking abilities. Piz Toissa (HB/GR-154) seemed to be good, with detailed reports on hikr.org. Additional I got some valuable hints from HB9CKV (thanks Hans).
One very special thing of this Summit is Ziteil, the highest located holy pilgrimage site in Europa, not far away.
The forecast was good enough, more cloudy in the morning, less in the afternoon, some snow half past one pm local time and 2…4 degrees C on the summit.
I started in the morning by car to Salouf. Above the village I had to put some money in the central parking meter (parking meter for all parking places along the two narrow streets up) and reached the highest parking (1850 m asl) near Munter after some kilometres.
Starting the hike from the parking: Munter
The way from there is on a small street and then for some kilometres on a country lane between meadowland (2000 … 2350 m asl).
Piz Toissa in clouds
Meadowland and Piz Toissa
An old herdsman hut on the way (see later)
Straight ahead I saw Ziteil 500 m away but I had to go to the left. On the next 400 m on a steep slope the path gains 200 m more hight (2550 m asl).
On the steep ascend: Ziteil in the back and Piz Curver (HB/GR-112) behind
Look from Ziteil on the steep ascend
The last 400 m to the summit (2656 m asl) is on more good-natured terrain.
Looking back from the summit
7.5 m pole with 6 m vertical wire
Starting my activation I got 2 local contacts on 2m FM (HB9CKV, HB9GR/p - thanks). After set-up the short wave station 15 more QSO in SSB came in the Log (EA2DT !, SA4BLM !, SM5LNE !, EA4BQG, SV1RVJ !, EA7GV !, EA2EVC, CT2HKN, EA2DDG, HP9JAY/p – S2S, EA2CP, EA7Q, EA1DHB !, F4WBN !, EA7GV !. 8 from these chasers gave me the chance for contacts from four or more summits the days before – thanks a lot!).
Right 1 pm local time snowfall was starting and I had to interrupt operation and cover the station for 20 minutes or so.
1 pm
Special: looking top down on a rainbow
Looking down on the herdsman hut, good to feel the height
After one hour activation, time for packing up and some time to enjoy the summit it was time to go down.
Descent and my next destination
Down on the country lane I visited Ziteil (500 m one way distance and 80 m more ascend 
) but all was closed.
Ziteil (2429 or 2433 m asl)
Farewell from Piz Toissa
Thanks again to all the chasers who made my activation successful!
73 Ludwig
