Off the back Rendl

St Anton's Rendl mountain really comes into its own when you want to start venturing farther away from the lifts with a number of short side-stepping climbs allowing access excellent hidden off-piste stashes. Rendl's many 'off the back' options include the Hinter Rendl bowl, the challenging North Face and scenic silence in comparatively gentle Rossfall

Klettersteig Rendl © copyright Richard McGibbon

Hinter Rendl
Let’s start with Hinter Rendl, a huge north facing bowl offering steep and wide untracked powder through high alpine terrain and open forest lines. It can get tracked early, but its vastness and unlimited lines means that you can almost always find something untracked many days after the last snow fall. Ride the Riffel 1 and 2 chair lifts and you access the bowl passing through a roped off section with a sign warning indicating you’re leaving the patrolled area. You will need to have experience in avalanche judgement to ski here.

The other entrance point is after riding the Gampberg lift, head right along Schimalegg ridge and where the terrain flattens a line right is taken to access a wonderful open bowl which leads you to trees and the track back top the Rendl Bahn, but be aware this route requires experience in route finding and avalanche judgment. Attention must be paid not to ski in the couloirs directly right as these hold dangerous snow directly after strong wind and or fresh snow and the scene of many an accident.

Rendl North Face
Long and dominating, Rendl's North Face immediately south of St Anton shadows over the village and offers an outstanding powder run that invites you to its upper open faces and its lower technical trees lines. This route however requires excellent route finding skills as take the wrong line and you will end up surrounded by cliffs and drops with a strenuous if not impossible hike back up the mountain.

You can access this area from the Gampberg lift and ski the itinerary route number R5 to it’s half way point, traverse right until you reach a radio antenna and ski the fall line to reach the trees, and then taking the obligatory right traverse line to escape the cliffs. There are many convex slopes on this face and they must be avoided during powder days as these are serious potential avalanche areas.

Rossfall
For those not quite up for the challenge of Rendl's north face, Rossfall wide rolling pitches offer delightful powder. A short traverse and a steep side-step climb up right side of the Riffel 1 chair lift allows access to this little paradise, where the stunning views and mountain silence remind you that off-piste skiing is what life’s all about! Route finding experience is important here too as you need to avoid certain convex slopes and potential terrain traps in this area.

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Avalanche guide

Some passages in this section are extracted from Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain by Bruce Tremper, Director of the Utah Avalanche Center.
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