The excursion to Schöne Aussicht and Im HinternEis

Every year, the program shows an excursion scheduled for the Sunday. In the last 5 years of Karthaus courses only twice the excursion also actually took place on the Sunday. This year it wasn't the weather resulting in a change of plans, but the sheep. Traditionally, the sheep that graze high up the mountains are brought down for the winter in mid September. On Saturday, the sheep around Karthaus came down and the festivities (beer drinking and loud Tiroler music) took place right next to our lecture hall. Knowing this, Paul Gruner, our host in 'Goldenen Rose' and 'Schöne Aussicht', and guide on our trip, advised us to go on Saturday instead of Sunday. Since the weather forcast was fine for both days there was no reason not to reschedule the excursion.

Early morning on the 16th the majority of the students and teachers left by bus for Kurzras where we took the 9 o'clock cable car up to Grawand. After a photo moment we walked down Hochjochferner glacier. We stopped at the weather station where Hans explained its research goal and functioning. On we went to a tunnel in the glacier snout. Everything went very smooth and we arrived at the Schutzhütte Schöne Aussicht around 11. There we enjoyed a nice pasta lunch before most of us started the ascend to the ridge (Im Hintern Eis, 3269 m). Here we had a magnificent view on the Hintereisferner, and although global warming melted a significant part of this massive glacier, the glacier was covered with snow. The hike up was certainly worth it! Some of the students thought the clime was not exciting enough and followed the ridge a bit further before descending to a small lake. Although the lake was already partly frozen it did not hold them back and they went swimming. To warm up again the ran down the mountain to Kurzras in record time. Most of us did it in a more reasonable time.

Although everybody was down in Kurzras well before the departure of the last bus, taking the bus turned out to be a challenge. Not only in Karthaus did the sheep come down, also in Vernagt. There the festivities attracted a lot of people. In order to be sure to have a place on the bus down some of them took the bus up to Kurzras first. As a result, the busses were already partly or completely full before arrival in Kurzras. Although the busses were a bit packed, everybody came back to Karthaus in time for dinner.