02:08

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Galtür

2008-08-22

Sylvia Manning-Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1905

My grandfather worked there doing odd jobs. He carried sand. That's how he became the first tenant of the hut. He had six sons. Three of them became mountain guides, just like him. They were able to perform their jobs as guides in a vast territory because their father was permanently employed at the hut. My father was born 1879. As a young man, in 1904, 1905 and 1907 he went to the Caucasus as a mountain guide for tourists. In Pamir. In the Altai mountains - they even climbed up to 6,100 metres in those days. Then my father succeeded my grandfather in the Jamtal hut. He took over the lease of the alpine hut in 1909. He started working up there with his bride, who became my mother. We were born in the years after 1920. Besides tending the animals, chopping wood and making hay, we were confronted with tourism, albeit of a simple kind. When we were young we already minded the goats at our fathers' hut. In the morning we were allowed to take the bucket of seal fat - the fat was used to waterproof the harnesses of the pack animals. The hut was only open in summer. Anyway, we were allowed to polish the shoes of the gentlemen with this seal fat. That's how we sort of grew into that environment of tourism.