Isentällispitz (2985 m) - snowshoe hike

This was a great snow shoe hike to Isentällispitz / Gorihorn (2985 m). The weather was perfect with blue skies!

Start of the hike at 07:45 in the morning. The temperature was +5°C with light winds. It felt a bit cold for the first half hour or so. There is hardly any snow left below 2300 m elevation. Higher up I tried to stay off the snow as long as possible during the ascent, and I only mounted the snow shoes after I reached elevation 2500 m! The snow was quite hard and easy to hike on.

After I reached the ridge between Isentällispitz and P.2904, I first paid a visit to P.2904* . Next, I left my snowshoes and hiking sticks below Isentällispitz, and continued on foot with my ice axe in the hand. Luckily, it is now possible to ascend to the summit on foot almost without having to cross any snowfields (T4-). A lot of the snow has already melted in the final and steepest part of the ascent.

At the summit of Isentällispitz, there was no wind, and it felt rather warm (especially wearing black pants). The view to surrounding mountains was amazing! I spent an entire hour at the top.

For the descent I chose essentially the same way. For the steepest descent from the ridge between Isentällispitz and P.2904 in westerly direction, I used my crampons instead of the snow shoes. During the descent below elevation 2500 m, I tried to stay on the snowfields as longs as could. It ended up being a lot of fun snow shoe sliding! But at around elevation 2200 m I had to finally take off the snow shoes.

Equipment:
- Alpine snowshoes
- Crampons
- Gaiters
- Hiking sticks
- Ice axe

Remark: On this snow shoe hike, I did not meet anybody. Obviously, the ski tour season is over for Isentällispitz.

*30-JUL-2019: Information from pizflora:
Due to an error of Swisstopo, Gorihorn, which is actually a synonym of Isentällispitz, was moved southwards on the maps and now indicates a nameless hump with the altitude of 2904. The error is corrected on Swisstopos 10'000 map. You may consult the old map on map.geo.admin.ch (pre-2002), where the name is "Isentällispitz od Gorihorn".