Franz Senn  –  Potsdamer Hut.

Leaving the Franz Senn behind.

We had a day to spare in the mountains so rather than go straight to the Starkenburger Hut  we planned an extra night en route at the Potsdamer north of the Wildkopf. There were plenty of choices.  The morning was dull and misty but still dry as we left on the well marked Hohenweg which traversed high across the steep north side of the Oberberg valley. Chamois wee spotted high above us. In parts the path was narrow and shaly above long drops and cables were encountered several times so it took us longer than we thought to reach the small Hochseduckalm.

Spot the path – top right.

A bench here was an ideal snack stop, there was no one about and slowly the cloud enveloped us. Cursory glances at the signs sent us along the wrong path in the mist for a few hundred metres until we realised we weren’t climbing and a compass bearing sent us back to the hut to start again.  This time it was straight up to the col at 2599m which we achieved in good time. There were no views to linger for so it was straight down the north side on slippery rock, the mica schist glistening with moisture. By now it was raining with thunder in the air so we didn’t stop till we were well down the corrie 500m below. Our sandwich stop there was fairly miserable …

Glum pieman and rockman.

… and we tramped on down an impressive valley, the Potsdamer Hut only coming into view at the last minute. We soon dried out over ‘teewasser’ This was a great little hut with lots of character and a friendly warden. It was quite busy as it is on another hut -to-hut circuit of the Sellrain area. We plotted various routes for tomorrow dependent on the weather.