Austria - Mt Grossglockner 3798m

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From Balaton we headed West towards the Austrian Alps. We had Mt Grossglockner as our target for the week. On the first day we had a pretty full day of driving and a TomTom input error by me (Lee) we ended up missing our junction by about 100km so with the rain lashing down we called it a night and made up the miles the next day. We had to cross over the mountain range from the north to the south and the options were a paid tunnel, a vehicle train or a super high and expensive toll road. Not knowing if they would accept the van on the train and not wanting to pay 25 euros for the road we opted for the tunnel that ended up being only 10 euros and taking us close to the destination. We found a great little waterfall and car park to set up for the night and decided to explore and enquire at the mountain guide office about the route.

The following evening we chatted through with the guides and decided to pay out and organise for a guide to join us once the weather had settled. This was Sunday and the weather window was not opening until Tuesday so we reserved the English speaking guide and hoped for the weather to improve. That day we found ourselves a great little campsite up in the valley which was almost brand new with great facilities and yet another chance for us to sneak onto a free electricity hookup to charge the laptop and the phones. That morning saw us riding up to the start point of the route up Grossglockner. A pretty gruelling 1 ½ hour slog continually uphill on a good road saw us at the trail head car park and some pretty amazing views of the mountain. Daunting to see it in all its surroundings and pleased that we had opted to go for a guide. Although not cheap, we wanted to use it as an exercise to see what level of routes we could manage and safely attempt ourselves in the future. The blast downhill was down an old gravel access route and rated as a black run so Lisa managed to convince me to give it a go, or was it the other way round?!?! Good fun and we both made it down in about 15 minutes. We played about revising crevasse rescue and a few rope techniques that afternoon using the van as an anchor and a grass drop off as the crevasse. We attracted a few funny looks in the campsite but no one had the guts to ask us exactly what we were doing

Monday we headed into the nearest town of Lienz for a wander and to pick up a few extra bits of climbing hardware and then a valley ride in the afternoon to get the legs warmed up for the following few days. We spotted a via feratta on the route which looked fun so we added it to the list of to do’s after Grossglockner.

We headed up to the trailhead nice and early on the Tuesday to avoid paying the toll on the road up that car’s have to pay. The bike recon mission had proved successful and saved us a few more euros. We had to get to the Studdlhutte by 12noon to meet out guide and although this was only indicated as a 4 hour hike up from the trailhead (1918m) we left in good time to allow us to rest up before meeting our guide and have lunch. 2 ¼ hours later we reached the hut. A little (read lot) ahead of schedule and with snow falling at 2801m we headed into the hut and had lunch. We met up with our guide Matthias just after 12 and headed off at about 1pm to cross the glacier. He stripped us of almost all of our climbing gear bar 1 screwgate, rope, bivvy bags, flip flops for the hut, my ice axe, Lisa fought for hers and won and wash bags. We know light and fast is the best way and we are often too heavy but to be stripped of this seemed a little odd. Leaving so late to cross a glacier was also against everything we knew but we had to trust the guide. As we headed up the trail to the glacier we started to pick Matthias’s brains on various things to get to know him a little and also to get our money’s worth. He was a great source of info and was going to be a good guide. Once at the glacier about 45 minutes after leaving the hut we “roped up”. For those not familiar with mountaineering this normally involves a long rope, carry some excess coils over your shoulder and tied in several times with extra rescue lines set up in case of a fall/crevasse incident. This rope up consisted of us clipping into pre-tied loops on Matthias’s rope, basic but effective considering that the glacier was barely crevassed and short. We crossed over it in about half an hour before heading up onto the ridge and some simple via feratta up to the Erzhog Johann-Hutte (3454m) for about 3pm.

Until now we had had no views of what lay ahead, between the snow falling and the low cloud it wasn’t a great day to be out in the mountains We dropped our bags off and then had a hot chocolate and a few moments outside and took a few photos of the route ahead, as visibility suddenly improved, both excited of what lay ahead. A nice mountain dinner and a quick beer saw us getting an early night before the 5am wake up call.

The weather was pretty clear as we set up the route after a quick and efficient breakfast. Roped up and crampons on we headed up a snow slope which rapidly turned into a 50 degree zig zagged route before we stashed the axes and poles and headed up onto the ridge for some mixed climbing. The route was immensely exposed but with lots of natural and man placed protection we made good progress over the ridge passing one guided group and down to the Alps worst bottle neck in peak season. A 50cm wide snow bridge which you have to down climb to and then climb up out of for about 10m up to the summit. We crossed with relative ease and made the final ascent up to the ridge.

A stunning cloud inversion was waiting for us and almost clear skies above made for some extremely dramatic photographic moments. We worked out that we were the 3 group up to the summit that day and after the obligatory poses and group shots we headed back down to the bottleneck before it got too busy. By this time the queues were building and with ascending groups having right of way we sat to one side and let the guides haul up a few of their groups and lightly assisting the more able others in their groups. We eventually found a slot and made a dash for the bridge and got ourselves across and then made our way steadily back down to the axes which although exposed and icy was easier than it had been on the way up.

After recovering our kit and heading back down the snow slopes which had melted fast and were now more slush over loose scree in places, we had time to reflect on the route and although not down safely yet we felt happy we could repeat the route in good conditions without the assistance of a guide. We enjoyed a few more poses and photos and shared a few laughs on the way down to the hut to collect the rest of our equipment.

We made it back by 9am and headed down the via ferrata towards the glacier. This path was well in the shade and icy so we took our time and made it down to the glacier, crossed back and headed to the studdlhutte to recover our banished equipment.
We had planned on going round to another glacier field to practice a few rescues and some rope work on our own but we were tired and with things to do the next few days and a long drive we decided to leave on a high and head down the 2 hours back to the van. A straightforward descent, some lunch and a quick snooze in the van saw us heading back to our waterfall sleeping spot and reflecting on a fantastic couple of days.