As we now have our ski passes for the winter, which are already valid, we were keen to use them to get high and do a nice autumnal walk, combined with a flight down. We decided to fly down from Hamberg which is above the Zillertal, but with an approach from the Alpbachtal via the Wedersberger Horn. We left the van in Jenbach train station and then got a train and bus to get to the bottom of the Wedersbergbahn.
The walk was really beautiful with autumnal colours covering the mountains, excellent views and was never too strenuous. The walk along the ridge was a bit more undulating than my plan had suggested, but it was still a relatively small amount of ascent overall.
The views from the Standkopf into the Höhe Tauern and Zillertaler Alpen were really excellent and after soaking in these views with some food, we headed down the ridge towards Hamberg to launch. The wind throughout the entire day had not quite been as I had expected, so I was really hoping we could launch!
On the descent I found one area which would have been ok to launch, but wanted to investigate the next small peak as this was the more normal start place. In hindsight, again, I should have stuck with the original place I found, as the wind was not ideal at the second launch. However we only found this out after getting our gliders out as it kept switching, and then unfortunately was shaded out which meant that it was just a reverse wind.
After waiting the sun eventually came back, and with that quickly a null wind situation. We were both ready to launch, so as soon as there was no wind Becky flew off into the descent and I quickly followed. The flight down was enjoyable, it was great to get a different perspective on a valley we have spent so much time in.
This was Becky’s first landing having not seen the landing field before, and we ended up not landing in either of the fields I proposed from the launch due to fences in these fields. After we both had good landings, we packed up and made the short walk to the Zillertalbahn, to get the train back to Jenbach.
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