Risetenpass

This was the second tour of this year, the first being mainly an avalanche course.

There was a lot of fresh snow, and the scenery was beautiful. The path was nearly flat in the beginning, only becoming significantly steep after we reached the flank of Riseten. The pace was fast: I could keep up, but I could not have gone any faster. By the time we reached the pass I was almost exhausted. It is true that I had stopped running in the last few months due to my Achilles, so my conditioning was not that good.

On the way down things were somehow worse. The descent was quite steep relative to my last tour, and the deep powder didn't help. I found myself deep in the snow many times. It was quite frustrating, and after the main descent, the mostly flat part to the car park felt terrible, as my legs were already like jelly. I guess I could have enjoyed the descent more had I been better in deep powder.... nevertheless I was happy to have made it in one piece and the company of the group was great.

I am not sure about the difficulty, though. It felt much harder than the two 'WS/WS+' I did this year, and, looking at the map, the descent route we followed was a bit steeper than the normal route.