Piz Toissa (2657 m) - snow shoe hike from Salouf

Great snow shoe hike to the summit of Piz Toissa, with start and end in Salouf. Beforehand, I did not find any report online about snow shoe hikes to Piz Toissa, but I wanted to give it a try on the summer route.

Start of the hike in Salouf shortly before 9 AM, just before sunrise. The temperature was around -5°C. I followed the snow covered forest road up towards Sars. There was a snowmobile track all the way to the (summer) parking lot at elevation 1800 m, so I didn't mount the snow shoes before getting up there.
From Sars I followed a ski and snow shoe track almost all the way to Furcletta. It looked like there had been 3-4 skiers and one snow shoe hiker going up towards Ziteil (perhaps yesterday?). But during the ascent I did not meet or see anyone - quite astonishing! I spotted a couple of chamois though.

As expected, there were no human made tracks going up to Piz Toissa. For the final ascent to Piz Toissa, I followed the summer route on the SW ridge. Starting at Furcletta, there is approx. 200 m elevation gain where the average slope is nearly 30°. In the upper part even slightly above 30°.

The view from the summit of Piz Toissa was great, and I spent about 30 min there.

The descent in the steepest section of the SW ridge was a bit tricky, due to hard and slightly icy snow. For a distance of 50 m or so, I chose to walk backwards downhill.

After reaching Furcletta again, I headed back down the same way as I had used for the ascent. During the descent, I met a few other snow shoe hikers and skiers near Sars.

All in all, a really nice snowshoe hike in a beautiful winter landscape! The weather was really perfect and sunny all day!

Equipment:
- Alpine snowshoes
- Hiking sticks
- Ice axe (not used)

Remarks:
The avalanche risk was "2 - moderate".
Please see the attached GPS track for more details on the route.