the Greizer to Berliner Hut and Berliner Hut to Furtschagl Haus stages. Children must be happy to be in the mountains for long periods at a time and easily entertained in the evenings, reading books, playing scrabble or simply chatting. One good tip is to have a friend with them for company and it is important to make sure that they have adequate stops en route and rest days.
Health and fitness
While you do not have to be super-fit to undertake these tours, it is essential that participants are used to walking for 6hrs continuously while carrying a touring-size rucksack weighing in the region of 12–15kg.
Altitude
The average altitude encountered on the tour is around 2500m–3000m (8000ft–10,000ft), so people visiting the Zillertal do not usually suffer badly from altitude sickness. However, you may feel the effects of altitude – such as feeling out of breath, mild headache and slowed pace – particularly on the high peaks such as the Grosser Moseler and Olperer. The best defence against altitude is to be as fit as possible, eat and drink normally, and to get adequate rest and sleep.
Emergencies and mountain safety
The Siebenschneidenweg (‘seven ridges way’), as seen in profile from below the Lapen Scharte en route to the Greizer Hut (ZRR Stage 2)
Both the tours in this guide involve sustained activity in a mountain environment. Inevitably, this increases the risk of an accident taking place, such as a severe fall, a broken limb or some other serious mishap, which will all result in the mountain rescue team being called out.
One of the benefits of membership of the OeAV is mountain rescue insurance in case of accident. This can be supplemented from a specialist insurance company, details of which are available from the Austrian Alpine Club (UK) and the advertisement sections of one of the many climbing magazines. Similarly the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) has an excellent insurance policy, which can be obtained separately to membership.
The value of insurance should not be underestimated, as the cost of a mountain rescue can be considerable when helicopters, police and professional mountain guides are brought into use. Unlike in the United Kingdom, where mountain rescue services are generally provided free of charge by the local authority and mountain rescue teams run by enthusiastic volunteers, in the alpine regions most countries will charge the hapless victim. Be warned!
Mountain safety is as much about prevention as it is about cure, so check out all your gear, practise constructing your improvised rudimentary harness and the time-consuming tasks of putting on crampons/harnesses and roping up, and develop your glacier travel skills and crevasse rescue techniques before you go (see ‘Alpine walking skills’, below).
European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
This card (previously form E111) is available free from any post office – just fill in the form to receive a credit-card-size EHIC identity card that entitles you to free medical care in any EU member state, including Austria. Should you be unfortunate enough to need medical attention while on holiday, then this card will help to pay your way. However, the EHIC entitles the holder only to those services provided free in the member state; it does not cover any aspect of medical repatriation. So even with an EHIC, you still need to be insured.
EMERGENCIES
Emergency services operate on a different satellite frequency to normal services, so the following numbers can be dialled from a mobile phone even when the phone indicates that there is no reception from your service provider. Fortunately, in Austria mobile phone reception is excellent.
Mountain Rescue (Bergrettung) Austria 140
Mountain Rescue (Bergrettung) Italy 118
Red Cross (Rotes Kreutz) 144
European emergency telephone number 112
International Alpine Distress Signal
Help required: signalled by shouting, blowing a whistle or flashing a torch at 10 second intervals for one minute. Then pause for one minute and repeat.
Answer received: signalled by shouting, a whistle or a flashing a torch at 20 second intervals. Then pause for one minute and repeat.
Signals to helicopters
Should you be involved with a helicopter rescue...
Stay at least 50m from the helicopter.
Do not approach the helicopter unless signalled by the winch man to do so.
Do not approach the helicopter from behind.
Ensure that all loose items of equipment are made secure.
The Austrian Alpine Club
Above Schwarzsee, with Turnerkamp (left) and the Grosser Moseler (centre) (ZRR Stage 4)
Huts throughout the Zillertal are administered by the Austrian and German Alpine Clubs, the OeAV and DAV respectively, except for those in the South Tyrol that are owned and administered by the Italian Alpine Club (CAI) or its regional equivalent, the Alpenverein Sudtyrol (AVS)
The Oesterreichischer Alpenverein (OeAV), translated as the Austrian Alpine Association, was founded in 1862 to foster and encourage the sport of mountaineering and is largely credited to Franz Senn, who was the village priest in Neustift (Stubai valley) until his untimely death, aged 52, from pneumonia, and his associates Johann Studl, a wealthy Prague business man, and Karl Hofmann, a young lawyer from Munich.
The Alpenverein, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012, was the first alpine club to be established in mainland Europe. Presently the Club has just over 400,000 members in 195 Sektions that embrace all facets of mountaineering. Membership is open to any person who has a love of the mountains, regardless of age or ability.
The Club’s principal activities include the development and provision of mountain huts, marking and maintenance of footpaths, production of maps, organising of mountaineering courses, and action on environmental issues, particularly those which are seen to spoil the mountains by either physical or visual pollution.
The establishment of the United Kingdom section, OeAV Sektion Britannia, is largely credited to Major Walter Ingham and Henry Crowther. It was formed in 1948 just after the Second World War to foster Anglo-Austrian relationships and to make it easier for British mountaineers in the immediate post-war years to visit the Eastern Alps.
Presently OeAV Sektion Britannia is one of the largest UK mountaineering clubs, with over 8000 members. The Club has a regular programme of indoor and outdoor meets, together with a website (see www.aacuk.org.uk) and quarterly newsletter. The Club also runs training courses for its members, both in the UK and in Austria, through the Alpenverein Akademie mountaineering school. The Austrian Alpine Club (UK) enjoys full reciprocal rights agreements with all other alpine clubs in France (CAF), Switzerland (CAS), Italy (CAI) and Germany (DAV). This means that if you were to visit the South Tyrol in Italy to stay at the Schwarzenstein Hut, for example, you
