Alpine Ski Touring at Sunrise — Tyrolean Mountain Hut Breakfast

Ski touring — skinning uphill on touring skis before dawn and skiing down as the sun hits the peaks — is the part of alpine skiing that the ski resort industry doesn't sell you. It is quieter, harder, and completely different from anything a lift gives you. We start from Kitzbühel at 6:00am with climbing skins attached to touring skis and headlamps. The ascent takes 90 minutes at a steady pace up a route I have done 200 times. The summit view at sunrise — Wilder Kaiser range, the Inn valley, the Kitzbüheler Horn, the Austrian-German border ridge — is one of the great moments available in the Eastern Alps and almost no visitors access it. We eat breakfast at the Ehrenbachhöhe mountain hut: Tyrolean Brettljause (bread, Bergkäse mountain cheese, speck, radishes), schwarzbrot and the best coffee in the district. The descent on fresh morning snow is yours. No prior touring experience required — I brief the equipment fully.