Fineilspitze

Alastair BegleyAustria, Ski Touring Short Link

I planned a weekend tour from Vent last year with the plan to ski from Vent to the Martin Busch Hütte, then over the Fineilspitze to the Schöne Aussicht and then over to the Hintereisferner and back down to Vent. The tour was initially supposed to have five people, but due to major trips being re-arranged due to being postponed, injuries and covid, it ended up just being me and Yasmin on the trip. The first day was a simple ski up the valley from Vent into the hut, we left Munich in plenty of time so we were in no great rush on the ski in, as we had plenty of time and our only plan for the afternoon was Apfelstrudel at the hut, and then crevasse rescue practice. The ski in was very straightforward and we only had to briefly take our skis off a few times. I have stayed at the Martin Busch Hütte a few times before, once as a child and once last year with Becky, and I remember the walk in going on with many “last corners”, and it certainly wasn’t different in Winter.. Read the full article…

Sellaronda Ski Circuit

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Skiing Short Link

Since doing the Sellaronda in the summer a few years ago on my bike I had been very keen to return in Winter to do the ski circuit. After Becky had made huge progress with her skiing this year we decided to do the anti-clockwise version on her birthday weekend in Italy. Due to the cold temperatures and lack of precipitation, combined with the snow making on the route the conditions were just about perfect with excellent piste conditions, wall to wall sunshine and not too many people. The morning started off pretty chilly, but with plenty of sunshine and empty pistes. We started from Corvara so it was a bit of a slow start with lots of fairly short lifts, but this gave us plenty of time to admire the wonderful scenery. Once we were at the top of the first pass the skiing to lift ratio improved dramatically and we started to make good progress around the route. The scenery remained fantastic and was always changing due to the circular route. Mid morning we stopped off for a coffee and some brunch to keep the energy levels high,. Read the full article…

Ice Climbing & Langlauf in the Reintal

Alastair BegleyItaly, Winter Climbing Short Link

For Becky’s birthday weekend we had optimistically booked a weekend in the Reintal in Südtirol, Italy. We were staying at the lovely Jausenstation Angerer gasthaus, which was situated just below the main ice fall. In the week running up to the trip the temperatures were really low, so despite being late in the season it was still possible to ice climb, however the days were fairly short due to the impact of the sun on the ice. We had hoped to do a multi pitch on the other side of the valley later on in the weekend, but we didn’t manage to do enough climbing to be confident to head out on a multi pitch route after a few years without doing any ice climbing. The routes we managed to do before the sun made the ice too soft to climb were really fun, and it was great to be back on the ice! Thankfully it wasn’t an issue having to finish the ice climbing early, as the Reintal is also brilliant for Langlauf (or XC skiing). We had never done it before so decided to give it a go,. Read the full article…

Juifen Ski Tour

Alastair BegleyAustria, Ski Touring Short Link

Despite the week of warm weather ruining the quality of a lot of the snow, careful route selection was still required due to deep instabilities in the snowpack on certain aspects. This lead me to select Juifen as neither the route and the slopes above the route were overly steep. The weather as we set off from the car park was less ideal than I was hoping for, as it was snowing for most of the ascent with low cloud shrouding the mountains. Despite the warm weather we were still able to skin from the car park, all the way to 100m below the summit. The start of the route up the Vorstraße was easy and we were soon at the split between Juifen and Hochplatte. At this point most people carried on to the closer Hochplatte, but there were some other parties making the treck over towards Juifen. As we emerged from the forrest the views into the valley were lovely and we could certainly see signs of the instabilities on certain aspects due to the amount of avalanche debris. As we were ascending the weather was starting to. Read the full article…

Rietzer Grießkogel

Alastair BegleyAustria, Ski Touring Short Link

After some careful route selection due to the avalanche conditions James and I settled on the Rietzer Grießkogel near Kühtai in Austria. This had the advantage that it was high, south facing and was mostly less than 30 degrees. The disadvantage of heading to a really popular tour, with a small car park was the starting time, and I was not particularly happy to be picking James up at 5:30 in the morning! The drive down was cold and it was still -10 degrees when we parked the car, thankfully as we were sorting out kit out the sun hit us and provided some much needed warmth. After the first 10m from the car we were able to put our skis on and then there was excellent snow cover the entire way. The ascent was very straightforward, the start up into the valley was a bit icy in the morning but we soon emerged into the wide open valley and began to be able to admire the views. Despite the air temperature staying cold, the sun and the ascent soon warmed us up and meant we were down to base. Read the full article…

Choralpe, Westendorf Paragliding

Alastair BegleyAustria, Paragliding Short Link

After a break from flying due to Christmas, we were both keen to get out flying again as soon as the weather allowed. On our first weekend where we were both back in Germany the weather aligned and we headed back to Choralpe, with a friend from our paragliding course. It was a wonderful day of flying with 10 degrees on the summits, zero wind and blue skies, it did feel more like spring than winter! The only downside of the warm weather was how wet out gliders were when we got them home.

Learning to Paraglide

Alastair BegleyAustria, Paragliding Short Link

As a child on a family holiday about 20 years ago I did a tandem flight above Morzine and since then I have expected to learn to paraglide at some point in my life, but had always assumed it would be much later in life and I certainly had not considered learning in 2021. However, due to a knee injury our mountaineering options were limited for our September holiday, so Becky suggested that we learn to paraglide as one of our friends had recently learnt in France and was raving about how fun it was. I am sure that people normally decide to paraglide and choose a flight school with more than 3 days notice, which resulted in us drawing a circle around Munich and looking for any flight schools within an appropriate distance which were also doing ground courses on the first Saturday of our holiday. We found a couple of schools within an appropriate distance of Munich and ended up selecting Cloudbase in the Zillertal. Given our experience on the course, this seemed to turn out as an excellent decision as it was a great valley to learn. Read the full article…

2021 in 100 Photos

Alastair Begley100 Photos, General, Landscape, Mountain Biking, Mountaineering, Paragliding, Wildlife Short Link

Another year has passed and what a year it was with some outstanding high points due to living so close to the alps, but also with plenty of covid induced low points in the first half of the year. The year started with the first variant and a full on lockdown in the UK, which resulted in Becky being unable to travel backwards and forwards as required for her job and me staying in the UK until mid February. It was my first full year living in Munich and I certainly made the most of living an hour from the alps and regularly had my mind blown about what I could achieve without even taking any annual leave! I am not sure I have ever had a year in which I have spent so much time in the mountains, and I am really looking forward to Becky also discovering this properly this year! Winter After heading back to Germany in mid February winter was looking pretty bleak, with most of the snow in Bavaria having melted and no travel possibilities to the higher mountains in Austria. However, the lack of. Read the full article…