Early July saw myself and Hannah McGregor in Innsbruck to meet ex-Wellingtonians(now Londonites) Ben and Kathryn Clendon and Tim Baker for a ferret around on the impressive snowfields of the Ötztal Alps. After a false start up the Gurgler Ferner (with only a 30m half-rope and facing a 20m abseil we were quite literally staring down the Gurgler), we back tracked and headed up a different valley from Vent. We scrambled up a chossy pile of junk called Saykogel that was around 3000 high and descended the Hojochferner (a glacier). 10 or 15 years ago climbers found the body of an early transalpinist just on the other side of a pass from the Hojochferner, it was a pretty impressive trip by the Ötzi man around 5600 years ago. We then gained the huge Gepatschferner snowfield via an easy but rather high pass from the Guslaferner. It would have been nice to spend a day or three up there climbing a huge number of peaks and peering in to Italy but London was calling (for some) so we post holed our way down to the Rauhekopfhutte, and a convivial night with the Frankfurt section of the DAV (German Alpine Club). Those guys are off to climb Pik Lenin in Krgystan in a week or so. We made our way back to Sölden via the Taschachferner and Mittleberg (glaciers) the latter of which is rather spoilt by enormous ski developments. There was plenty of thunder and lightening most afternoons and the last lot caught us on the Piztaler Jöcht which made for a fairly hasty descent into the Rettenbachtal valley and a bus ride down to Sölden. Good times. Richard Davies