Furtschaglhaus – Schlegeis, Dominikushütte.

Woke to sleet and snow with nil visibility. So a leisurely breakfast and sitting around for a late start as fortunately we were heading down the valley and decided to take a half day. We phoned the Dominikushütte and booked a room, they sounded pleased to have us as the bad weather would put a dampener on the weekend. There was a trail through the snow going down steeply to the valley below, the rocks were slippy and we took our time. Very few people were coming up and our route of yesterday would be out of the question. We arrived in the valley next to the provisions lift from where a track ran to the lake/reservoir. By now it had stopped snowing but the clouds were down revealing only occasional glimpses of the surrounding mountains. We dawdled along the lakeside track, walked through a mainly deserted carpark and arrived at the dam. This 70m wall was built in the 1960s and provides hydroelectric power as well as flood control for the Mayrhofen Valley. The original alpine hut was destroyed in the process and our present accommodation, Dominikushütte, was constructed higher above the water. We received a warm welcome from the family and dog, bowls of Knödel soup went down well as we dried out. Our room was airy and spacious, a change from the mountain huts. We are still at a height of 1800m and the afternoon was gloomy with no one else about, time for festering [an unusual verb describing our activity]     They had given the chef the night off as nobody else was expected but slowly more people started arriving and by evening it was quite busy.  By special request we had Tyrolean Grosti with a great celeriac remoulade for supper. A wicked schnapps finished off the meal.We had three days left and wanted to visit the last three high huts but the forecast was poor, We deliberated over various options but went to bed undecided, lets see what the morning is like.

Quote of the day – “this is better than sleet”  as the morning snow piled up.