Hermann Götsch, born in Merano in 1975, grew up on the Obergamp farm in Vernagt in the Schnalstal valley. Under the same roof lives a “dynasty” of farmers/breeders who have been dealing with sheep for generations. His father Konrad is the former president of the Niedertal agricultural community, which has managed and cultivated the extensive alpine pastures in the Ötztal since 1514.

As the farmer of the farm, he had 80 sheep that spent the summer in the Ötztal, while in spring and autumn he kept them on the slopes of the Prettberg above the Obergamp farm that he leased. Konrad accompanied the herds past the Similaun hut countless times and remembers that at that time the glacier itself washed around the hut and it took more than an hour to cross it.

The weather was not good several times and in 1979 a terrible storm killed 70 sheep! Hermann, his son, accompanied the sheep for the first time in 1983, when he was only 8 years old, and then for decades, and he remembers that the entire crossing has now been made without setting foot on the glacier! As he was quite strong, he had the task of carrying the lambs born along the route or those that were too weak in a special basket on his shoulders. But he also fondly remembers certain evenings, even playing the accordion, in the old shepherd’s hut, destroyed by an avalanche in 2011. Then he proudly tells us that it was immediately rebuilt with the help of craftsmen and companies from the Schnalstal valley and is now a gem, equipped with an ecological sewage treatment plant and a turbine to generate the necessary electricity.

He inherited the farm in 2005 and now keeps around 30 sheep. Meanwhile, his son Manuel, who brought the sheep to Ötztal for the first time at the age of 6, not only helps with the work on the farm, but also spends the whole summer alone in the new shepherd’s hut. It is only at the beginning of September, when the sheep have to be rounded up in a large and impassable area, that he gets help from many employees. A very strenuous job that, as Hermann says, would not be possible without the help of well-trained dogs!