Just another great day for a ski tour

It's February, it's weekend and it's a beautiful cloudless day. So we jump in our car and 40 minutes later we stand at the foot of our today's ski tour climb: the Gehrenspitze, approx. 1900 meters altitude, close to Laterns, St. Gerold and Damüls, all smal villages in the Alps of Vorarlberg.

It's not far away of another ski tour to the Portlerhorn and Ragazer Blanken we did days ago. It's 8am, and the sun reaches only the highest peaks. We start on a broad road (which is closed during winter) to Furka on the way to Damüls, and follow later a narrow, long path to the foot of the Gehrenspitze. We pass a creek and climb up the first slope, still in shadow of the surrounding mountains.

There is enough snow, but it seems it melted at the surface the days before in the afternoon sun; and no in the early morning, it's icy and slippery. Our climbing skins don't seem to have enough grip on this kind of snow and we loose one or two steps everytime. This becomes very hard, and we have to quit the lanes of yesterday's ski tours and make our own.

After two hours of finally sunny ascent we reach the summit. Pretty fast, but a little bit tired. We need a good cup of hot tea!

After one hour of sun bathing at the Gehrenspitze, we pack our stuff and start the downhill drive. The snow is hard at the surface, very soft below it. The best conditions where you don't have to cross older ski tracks - they tend to be hard and will slow down your drive immediately, with the effect, you'll have to digg yourself out of good cold and pure snow.

The beautiful day and the snow crust makes it fun - we just fight our way down, looking for pure spots, and after 30 minutes, we reach our parking lot. Thirsty, sweating, but happy like small kids! Ski touring is definitely fun and a great outdoor sport.

During summer, this is a perfect place for mountain biking (like this tour through the Mellental) or hiking like we did two valleys further east.