IT cannot be said that Tyrol is a country which is attracting many English climbers at the present time, in spite of the whole-hearted enthusiasm for the country of those who have travelled there. Occasional inspections of hut books on wet days during the last two summers have shown that it is extremely rare to find an English entry at all I am afraid, therefore, that notes on Tyrol will not be of much practical use to anybody, but at the same time I think that anyone who has had particularly enjoyable climbing in some district, should occasionally place his appreciation on record and hand on to others whatever he may have gained in the way of useful information, and I believe most strongly that there is no country in Central Europe quite so well adapted as Tyrol for guideless climbing and wandering on from one group to .html without ever descending to the towns.
In the first place mountaineering (it would be better still to call it mountain-wandering) as practised in Austria differs enormously in extent from the same sport in all other countries, for it has become more truly national than the most national of our own sports. It was no doubt extremely popular before the war, but it is far more so now. We realised this especially on arriving for the first time in Innsbruck, when, after a long and tiring hunt in the rain to find beds for the night, we were offered places in the Touristen-zimmer of the Goldene Sonne. By that time we would thankfully have accepted anything and ascended gladly to the highest level attainable in the hotel, where in one vast attic under the rafters we found fifty or sixty beds stretched in neat rows, nearly all occupied. The beds were scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, and by six in the morning all the occupants had quietly risen and departed. Every Austrian goes to the mountains, and this leads to a most extraordinary variety in the composition of the parties that are to be met there. The key-note is wandering quite as much as climbing and very few people stay more than a night or two in the same hut. As one sits outside one of the more popular huts there is ceaseless activity. Some, it is true, who have arrived to stay will be bathing, if there is a stream, or lying in the sun; but there will usually be a continual arrival and departure of fresh parties, and astonishment grows on the stranger as he sees every party supplied with whatever type of meal it requires at any time of day. Some of these parties may be family caravans, the grand-parents at the head, patriarchal in appearance and deliberate in gait, and the latest additions, in diminutive shorts and Grüss Gott emblazoned braces, in the rear. The more workmanlike are, of course, those made up of two or three men, but they are not by any means the only ones who will be found on the peak the next morning.
It may perhaps seem from this that the huts will be excessively crowded, and it is undoubtedly most important for people who intend to climb in Austria to become members of the D. & Oe. A.V. or of the O.A.C., in order to have a right to use their huts, which are usually very large and almost luxurious. The bigger ones are built to hold a hundred or more people, and many are being enlarged, so that it is only the most popular of all, such as the Erzherzog Johann hut on the Glockner, which are consistently overflowing. No beds are allotted to non-members of the dub, however early in the day they may arrive, until late in the evening after the members have been satisfied. Membership of the club is easily obtained. It costs ten shillings for entrance and ten shillings a year. As the charges for a bed in a hut are doubled, or even trebled, for non-members, this sum is more than saved in the first week. It is the exception for a hut to be unprovisioned; even the Brandenburger hut in the middle of the Gepatsch glacier, at a height of. over 10,000 feet, can supply the most excellent meals, although it is an eight hours’ journey from the road, of which a considerable part is .impossible for mules. Prices are slightly less than those ruling in the valleys, and, although the days of fabulous cheapness are over, the cost of climbing and living in Austria, taking hotels and huts together, is almost exactly half of the cost in Switzerland. The Austrians are extremely pleasant in their relations with visitors, though probably few parties will receive quite such a warm welcome as we did on descending from the Silvretta group to Wiesberg on the main railway, where a very large and slightly inebriated Austrian embraced us enthusiastically on the ground that we were compatriots of Henry VIII. "Heinrich der Achte," he said more than once, " war ein Mann ! Er hatte sechs Frauen ! ! "
In planning a tour there is one point in particular which should be noted – the crossing of the Italian frontier is often impossible. In 1924 it was forbidden by the Italian authorities almost entirely, which was particularly awkward if one had planned to tour around the head of the Ahrenthal. In 1925 some of the high huts just inside Italy, such as the Becherhaus in the Stubaier Alps, could be used, provided no further descent were made into Italy, and a crossing was permitted without trouble at certain other points such as the Timmeljoch between the Oetzthal and Passeierthal. The descent from the Oetzthal peaks into the Langtaufererthal and a return to Austria over the Reschenscheideck could also be carried out without interference. Probably in 1926 there will be less trouble still, for as far as one can see there is no reason why any difficulty should be made at all.
Mayrhofen, with a charming old hotel, the Alte Post, where all the lintels of the bedroom doors are occupied at night by rows of swallows, is a centre from which the climber can take his choice of several different valleys with their surrounding peaks. Perhaps the pleasantest course to follow is to leave the rucksacks to come up by the daily mule-post and walk the whole length of the Zillerthal to the Berliner Hütte, about seven hours away. This may be said to be the most luxurious of all huts, and is the finest product of D. & Oe. A.V. methods of hut construction and maintenance. The peaks around are the best of the Zillerthal Alps. The Schwarzenstein is easy and popular, being but a long snow trudge, but near at hand, though only visible when one climbs up to the Schwarzsee, is a rock peak of great spikiness called the Zsigmondyspitze. No English rockclimber could leave without attempting it. The ordinary route leads up the S.E. arête and makes a long and interesting traverse right across the west face and back again to avoid some difficult overhanging slabs. Above the traverse the route continues on the ridge and then gains the summit by some chimneys on the east face. On these faces there are routes of the most intense difficulty, some of which have only been climbed once or twice, and apparently involve complicated methods of swinging pendulum-like across various mauvais pas. The Thurnerkamp and Mösele are both snow and ice climbs, which may be taken from the Berliner hut, but the Masele may be ascended with greater ease by crossing first to the Furtschagel hut over the easy Schönbichlerhorn. From its summit there is an extensive view from the Glockner to the Bernina, with all the long ranges of the Dolomites in the south. The Furtschagel is a hut set on a bare rock platform on which all the heat of the sun at midday seems to be focussed from the surrounding semicircle of glaciers. The Hochfeiler, a peak which used to be attempted only from the western side, is now sometimes climbed from this hut, but the routes are extremely long – nine, ten or eleven hours, and involve the passage of a crevassed glacier and the ascent of either a loose rock arête or 1,800 feet of a steep snow, or, later in the season ice face, a serious expedition, seldom done.
It would be impossible to indicate the chief attractions of all the other groups, but two expeditions may be singled out in particular. The first is to cross from Windisch-Matrei to Kals by the Kalser-Törl, a very beautiful grass pass where one may appreciate the Austrian spirit of wandering perhaps better than anywhere else, and then climb the Glockner from Kals. The first glimpse of the sharp peak of the Glockner just catching the dawn, with the splintered wall of the Glocknerwand beside it like a great black-crested wave about to topple over, will stir the blood of the coolest climber as he turns into the Ködnitzthal from the lower valley. The second expedition is to gain the Brandenburger hut in the Oetzthaler Alps, having climbed the Wildspitz and whatever else calls you on the way, and then set out very early across the wide Gepatsch snow fields towards the sharpest cut and whitest of all snow peaks, the Weisskugel. It will be late enough in the day, however early the start, before the rock wall down to the Langtauferer glacier has been descended, and all the long uphill slopes to the Weisskugeljoch are left behind; but if the conditions are good the summit can then be reached by cutting straight up the 1,200 feet of excessively steep bare wall that sweeps down right from the summit to the joch, without a break of the pure white in its whole surface. Two and a half hours from the joch down the Langtauferer glacier there is a very small and pleasant hut, called the Weisskugel hut, and the descent into this valley is a very good way of finishing a tour through Austria, for the Ortler lies only a short distance away, or if one wants to get into Switzerland it is equally easy to reach the Engadine and so either the Silvretta or the Bernina groups.
Enthusiasts write at times of some district they have just discovered as though all climbers should be pressed into parties and marched off to it at once, and they sometimes almost scold their fellow-men for not sharing all their enthusiasms. While I am anxious not to go to this extreme, I am still convinced that there must be many people who would find in Austria exactly the type of climbing and wandering which would suit them, if they would only strike a little further east than usual.
The literature on the Group is very extensive, mostly in German. Bädeker’s "Eastern Alps " is very good and the Maps are splendid. More information for the climber will be found in Purtscheller & Hess’ "Hochtourist," Vol. II., 1911 and still more details in H. Delago's "Die Zillertaler Alpen."