Austria: Großglockner (14/28)

We’ve actually been in and out of Austria and Slovenia a number of times over the last few weeks. However, we left Slovenia for the last time and crossed the mountains into Austria, after a few hours drive found a nice lake, parked up and settled in for the evening. 

We had a few sundowners and another GB camper turned up. These guys are spending six months travelling around Europe in their VW Transporter. It turns out we are basically doing opposite routes so we swapped recommendations and advice for our upcoming countries. We had a little van envy as they had a pop top, an insect net — which covered their side door — and some USB powered fans, which we really could have done with that night.

We wanted to have a couple of rest days, after completing four peaks in the previous week, and before attempting our highest peak to date in Austria. So we did what seems to be a traditional Austrian summer holiday activity and headed to a Lido at Worthersee. But after our beach day was shortened by a thunderstorm we headed in the direction of the mountains.

We found a spot which happened to be near some sort of woodland story trail. After a pleasant cool night’s sleep we were rudely awakened by a hornet flying in through the window, luckily Olly kept calm, and caught it in a mug. Now fully awake we went for an explore in the woods. Conveniently amongst the odd wooden carvings and the mini water wheels there was a compositing toilet, winner!

The weather was looking a little unsettled for the following few days and we had read that Großglockner is very popular so its best to avoid climbing over the weekend. To kill time we headed for Falkertsee which is a small lake in the Biosparenpark Nockberge. Near the lake are a couple of via ferratta routes. We decided to try and squeeze in one before the forecast afternoon thunderstorms. We opted for the harder grade D route which turns out is the hardest via ferrata I have ever done. I have always thought I would be OK with via ferrata as one can hand over hand climb the cable in a worst case scenario. It turns out this route was the worst case scenario, there were very limited holds for hands or feet so we had to haul ourselves up the mostly vertical sometimes over-hanging cable for 200+ vertical meters.

They say you should do something everyday that scares you and I think this covers me for at least a week. Olly was very patient waiting for me to work up the courage to continue with each section and to rest my arms every 10 meters.

After we escaped this horrendous pull-up torture we walked up to the summit of Falkert, ate our lunch, and walked back through the valley. I had another fright when I narrowly missed treading on a snake which was crossing the path.

The following day we started our Großglockner preparations which included scouring the area for an outdoor gear shop which sold ice-screws. Eventually, three shops and an hour drive later we found some and bought the last two in the shop. We then headed for a camping stop near to Großglockner. It had been pouring down with rain all day but luckily our spot had a small shelter in the forest with a large table which we could use for gear sorting and packing.

Also included in our preparations was a YouTube refresher of how to wear mountaineering rope coils and Olly teaching me the basics of crevasse rescue. This would be the most technical climb we have done this trip and possibly ever without a guide.

The following morning after waiting for the rain to stop we headed up the Großglockner normal route. The route starts simply enough with a slog up a gravel path to the Studl Hutte at 2802m (this is where most people meet their guide). Though it had stopped raining the visibility was still pretty poor. This actually worked to our advantage in multiple ways, firstly we couldn’t see how imposing the glacier walk was and secondly it was much cooler walking in overcast conditions.

We roped up for the glacier following the well worn tracks in the snow, we had a quick stop off to practice placing our new shiny ice screws before continuing the exhausting snow plod. Finally we reached the cliff which had some sections of via ferratta. 

These weren’t too technical, but were steep. We are still getting used to being roped together and I think this can be an argument generator. Eventually after a gruelling 1525m of ascent we reached the Erzurum Johann Hutte at 3454m which is the highest mountain hut in Austria.

We chilled out for a few hours before a three course dinner and an early bed-time. Breakfast started at 05:30am so most people were in bed by 9pm. Annoyingly not everyone shared this idea as someone insisted on turning on the light and talking loudly at 10pm. The same person turned the light on at 5am so Olly missed his 15 minute lie-in.

Breakfast was a little sparse, but quick and we were out the door before 06:00. It was actually better to be behind the guided groups as they are always very fast. We headed up another two snow slopes which were definitely steeper and more imposing than the glacier crossing. Next we reached a rock wall with some via ferrata cable. This was actually quite tricky and because you are stepping from ice to rock you have to climb the first section whilst still wearing crampons.

Here our major rope faff began, it was very tricky to work out how much rope to have out and how far to climb between belay points. The guides all short rope their clients (have a short amount of rope and lead them like a pet) which definitely reduces the faff, but this doesn’t really work for our abilities.

Eventually we made it onto the main ridge which is impressive in terms of its exposure and views. We now had the hang of how much rope we wanted out but the next challenge was contending with groups coming back along the ridge and guides pushing their clients past us. Along the ridge are a series of metal poles fixed into the rock which everyone uses as simple belay points. This makes passing people particularly awkward as you keep having to untangle your ropes from the other groups using the same pole.

After a series of scrambles and untangles we made it to the summit at 3798m. The views were amazing and well worth the effort to get there. We then repeated the same faff to get back along the ridge and down to the top hut. There was now a clear view of the whole the glacier, after a few snacks we headed back down the via ferrata, across the glacier and back to the Studl Hutte.

The plan was to stay a night here to break the decent but we both decided we would rather walk another 2.5 hours downhill and get a good nights sleep in our van. We opted for lunch at the hut, but bamboozled by the German menus and having been up since 5am we ended up with some rather expensive but very tasty pasta.

With some rain clouds approaching we made our way down the final section of path, and were lucky enough to see a whole heard of chamois with huge horns as well as a marmot.

We made it back before the rain and had a very sound nights sleep. This was definitely the most challenging peak we have done, partly due to the grade II climbing on the ridge and the winter skills required for glacier crossing and walking up steep ice slopes, but mainly due to having to deal with a lot of other people. Quoting Olly “This was probably the most stressful day of my life”. Which is because he felt responsible for my safety. Personally I was less stressed than on the awful via ferrata earlier in the week.

The next day we headed to Germany & Switzerland (details in future blog posts), but a week or so later we were back in Austria on our way to Czechia. We made a stop off near Innsbruck for the Klettersteig Stuibenfall on recommendation from our friends Cat and Adam. This is a via ferrata route which runs up the side of the largest waterfall in Tyrol. This is a easy-moderate via ferrata but includes fun things like a wire bridge across the top of the waterfall. After arriving at the top of the waterfall you return to the bottom by a series of metal staircases which must have been a feat on engineering to install.

Our final adventure in Austria was to visit Schwartzmooskogel Eishohle, an ice cave on the Loser plateau. This area has been explored by the Cambridge University Caving Club for over 40 years. We have never attended this expedition but many of our caving friends have. With our access arranged with CUCC we headed up to the plateau with a GPS point of the cave and a set of instructions to locate it. 

However fate was kind to us, the German caving expedition which normally runs alongside the Cambridge one were camped out in the car park and a group of cavers were planning to explore a cave very close to the one we intended to visit. They very kindly showed us the way. I had forgotten how tiring it is to walk along limestone pavement. There are many clints and grykes (fissures and ridges) that one has to hop over. The German cavers had been crossing this area for days and so I had trouble keeping up. The route was pretty tricky, butwe definitely saved many difficult hours of wandering around trying to find the cave by following them.

This cave is different to most we explore as it is an “ice cave”. The name translates as ‘snow volcano’. Once we climbed down the snow slope in the entrance we entered a huge chamber which had an ice covered floor. At one edge was an enormous snow slope leading to another entrance which must have been 30 meters high. This is where the cave gets its name as this snow mountain looks very much the same shape as a volcano.

The cave has a series of ice formations which change shape every year, partially melting in the summer and reforming over winter. Some of these were 10 meters high and we spent some time wandering around the huge chamber having a look around and attempting to take some photos.

This is the first time we have used flash guns and we are pretty happy with the results. After a couple of hours we returned to the surface to have some lunch and find our way back to the car park. That evening we enjoyed a beer and a chat with the German caving group before we headed to Czechia the next morning.