Good weather was forecast for last weekend. Hence, I arranged a trip with an overnight stay for my daughter Marie and me in preparation of a multi-day hike in summer. We chose Schwarzenberghütte (1380 m), which is easy to reach and open almost all year round. From here we hoped to be able to climb Grosser Daumen (DL/AL-077) although it is still early in the year and likely to meet snow on the trail.
No sooner said than done. On Saturday, the weather was brilliant. We went to Hinterstein and further on into Ostrachtal. From there, we started our hike to the hut, where we checked in around noon and had lunch.
After a short break (which was necessary after the “Kaiserschmarrn”), we set off on the ascent to Engeratsgundsee (1876 m) to check the conditions of the trails. It soon became clear that there was still a lot of snow. More than a metre!
The lake, Engeratsgundsee, almost completely frozen over:
Later in the afternoon, when we had returned to the hut, we spoke to the friendly innkeepers about our options for the ascent on the next day - and they offered to lend us snowshoes 
On Sunday, the weather was cool. There were many clouds, with the sun only peeking out from time to time. We started the ascent at 8:30 with heavy packs. Only after two hours did we reach the lake again, took a short break for a snack and put on our snowshoes.
After another hour and a half of climbing in steep snow, we reached the summit at 12:15 local time.
View back along the ridge:
The view was limited because of the many low clouds. And as it was really cold without sunshine, I did only a brief activation of around 15 minutes. 15 call signs made it into the log. Ten on 40 CW, five on 10 CW. Then it was already time to pack up and head back down. Luckily, the descent in the snow went much faster than expected and was actually lots of fun. It was rather a downhill race. After 15 minutes, we were back at the lake, a good 400 vertical metres below the summit and feeling warm again.
On the remaining part of the trail we took it easy:
Finally, we stopped off again at Schwarzenberghütte and had a snack before we took the pleasant trail (“Sommerweg”) down into Ostrachtal, where we caught our bus back to Hinterstein.
It was a great weekend with an unforgettable hike.
Thanks for the QSOs and sorry that we couldn’t stay longer at the summit.
73, Roman
You had a great time.
