Slab avalanche at Weisser Schrofen - this tour turned out to be a bad idea.
We had wanted to revisit Weisser Schrofen for a while, tempted by the last unclimbed rock section to the summit, a plaisir bolted climb that we had discovered on our first attempt. The start is pretty hairy even for a climber, and one tops out the last few meters in snow, so we'd need crampons and climbing gear.

Now, the conditions had gradually improved after a stormy snowfall. We reckoned that there should have been enough time for the fresh snow to settle, and feeling that the season was running out, we gave it a go.
Weisser Schrofen is an anonymous peak at around 2130 m between Heiterberg and Höferspitze. The tour ascends through Bärgunttal from Baad, and ends in a shaded couloir leading to the summit. We got a relatively late start in the morning as compared to the very early start recommended for a spring tour. Although the ascent up the Bärgundt valley was swift, it wasn't enough. In the bowl beneath Weisser Schrofen we had a desperate struggle with sticky snow building up to towers under the skis, all the while tracking up towards the couloir. But much worse, we soon realized that the fresh snow cover far was thicker than we had anticipated. As there were also avalanche traces on all summits except this couloir, we were forced to question whether to abandon now or try our luck. The other avalanches were apparently from the day before. Either the snow has set overnight - or it hasn't.

It wouldn't be the first time for us to cancel due to weather or snow conditions - quite the opposite - so why did we now, with warning signs all around, choose to continue? That is a question for future pondering.

Well, we did continue. On the conditions that we'd only go as long as the snow felt stable (we've developed a sort of feeling for slab avalanche prone snow under our skis), and keeping an immense distance to each other. Markus with his ABS backpack went first in slow zig-zags, halted by the sticky snow. Eventually we both got up, but the last few meters on steep terrain did feel unstable in a way we didn't like at all.

In spite of the time consumption so far, we still wanted to climb, and so quickly donned crampons and harness. Markus braved the first hard moves and enjoyed the rest with ease. That is, until the question arose if we'd run out of rope… It ended with him down-climbing a bit, abseiling from 10 m below the summit, and then me climbing the same distance and that was that. Thus we didn't reach any summit this time either. At least we had fun while climbing. Next time we'll bring our 60 m single or 50 m double ropes…

No time for a pause, off with the gear to go down. Nobody in or below the couloir - in fact, we'd been alone all day. Markus jumped into the couloir (as a safety measure - if it would go off, it would do so below him). Immediately a slab went off, quickly escalating to an avalanche… Many times that we've seen the start of avalanches (mostly much further away, otherwise loose snow avalanches) we are taken aback by how quickly and explosively they can escalate. You'd think that this little snow cannot cause that much harm, but it does. Our slab avalanche, the first and hopefully last we ever set out, eventually reached 200 meters down. We realized we couldn't even see the very end of it, and THAT was discomforting. What if someone was actually there, at the very tongue...?

Startled, we set off down to search for any victims. After reaching somewhat safer ground (we were up at the very top when it happened, where there was room for more to go off), a dreadful search for any possible victims began. Markus' transceiver freaked out. It showed intermittent signal and highly inconsistent values, but a second sweep could confirm it was a faulty signal. That transceivers will be replaced, by the way - an erroneous signal is about the third worst thing that can happen.
After the search we carefully inspected the tracks that we had come along. It was clear that the tracks were old, melted by the radiating sun, and that there were pole marks from only two persons. Thank god (or rather nature), for giving us this experience without anybody coming to harm.

We were already rather drained by the incident, and the rest of the descent made it no better. By now the sun stood high and the snow wet and heavy. It was like rubber halting the skis even in the downhill. At coming down, the decision was quite clear: this would be our last tour this season.