We set off from the valley at sunrise. The plan is to climb to around 1,700 metres to the self-service Wildenseehütte hut. It takes me quite a while, though, to get used to the snowshoes strapped to my feet. It's my first time on them (and my first Alpine trip in my new Asolo Arctic winter boots too, but more on those later), so I trot back and forth, trying walking uphill and downhill, and only once I'm fairly sure I won't fall flat on my face do we head up.
I know the Totes Gebirge from summer. But in winter even familiar mountains turn into a completely different world. And it's gorgeous! Everything is so clean and untouched, and the snow just sparkles in the sunlight. Still, the climb up really takes it out of me. I'm puffing hard and stopping every few minutes. But I carry on, dazed, up through the snowy splendour and phew! – at last there's nowhere left to climb. Now it's just a few kilometres of flat walking to the hut. Perfect silence lies over the whole range, broken only by the creak of our snowshoes sinking into the snow. If there's any life up here, winter has tucked it away under a thick duvet. Nature is fast asleep, and the dazzling white horizon completes the purity of the moment.
We only find the hut thanks to GPS coordinates. It has completely disappeared into a landscape levelled out by snow. We grab shovels and dig our way to the door. Clearly we have to earn the comforts of the hut.
I grab the handle, the door opens and we're saved – we have somewhere to sleep. I squeeze inside excitedly. A kitchen, a dormitory, a small woodshed – everything we need is here. We light the stove, melt snow and get dinner going. Meanwhile two local ski tourers arrive, and shortly after them we hear a very familiar language. Outside the hut a bunch of lads from Brno are taking off their snowshoes, and soon two more Czech skiers turn up. Not long after they arrive, darkness finally floods the mountains.
I step out for one last breath of fresh air for the day. It's clear and bitterly cold. Above my head thousands – tens of thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands of golden dots are twinkling. The conversations drifting out here are now and then split by a hearty laugh. This remote spot is pulsing with life in the middle of otherwise utterly deserted mountains. For tonight it has brought eight strangers together. “People with the mountains in their hearts always find common ground,” I think as I stand in the doorway and head back in. Because the kitchen is buzzing like a reunion of old friends.
The next day we just head back down. But I realise that something new has imprinted itself on my soul up there. That pure, quiet winter beauty – it's utterly simple, and anything extra would probably only spoil it. There's no need for anything shocking that hasn't been here before. Simplicity can be amazing too. Refreshing. And inspiring. Like this winter mountain landscape.
“I'm fallliiiiing!” I end the romance with a mighty scream. Lost in my daydream, a chunk of icy snow has suddenly broken away under my foot. I'm hurtling down the slope.
Ice axe! – flashes through my mind. I've been taught so many times in theory how to self-arrest with it. Now I'm trying it for real, and with all my strength, the whole weight of my body, I try to drive the pick into the frozen snow. And it works! I soon bring my uncontrolled slide to a stop. Danger averted. Still a little in shock, I sit down on my backside and notice red drops falling on the snow around me. Blood? Where's it coming from? What's happened to me? Luckily the icy crust has only nicked my palm a little, and I'm already waving up that I'm OK. While I wrap the cut in a hanky, the rest of the group comes down to fetch me.
Now without any more trouble, all together and in one piece, we reach the valley. And before we move from the quiet winter sonata back into exuberant spring, I turn one last time to the snowy summits behind us. May I keep that quiet beauty inside me for as long as possible.
