18/19-10-12
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| Steinberge Alps |
I had a dilemma, the morning after I came off Hochkönig the
weather that I had me worried I might get caught up in whilst up there,
arrived. In the valleys it rained for 36 hours and on the hills it snowed. I
kind of resigned myself to start heading northwards through Germany and home.
However, I could see that the weather forecast was offering one day of sunshine
later in the week, so I took the risk and waited. Well, as it turned out in the
Austrian Tyrol/German Bavarian Alps this one day turned into a fine Indian
summer for several days
once you got
above the valleys full of temperature inverted mist that lasted until lunchtime
each day.
Good job too, because I overslept on the first fine day – and
therefore just spent the afternoon wandering around the lower slopes of
Birnhorn without a map.
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| Leogang under the clouds |
On 18 October, still without a map, however by now with some
idea of the layout of the mountain, I set off from Ullachtal in thick mist,
past a picnic site with heavy duty barbecue facilities on a vigorous track that
has a series of those nature trail information boards way up the hillside. As
ever, the track started in forest and then went through dwarf pines to break
out above the cloud level
to reveal the
rocky outline of the Steinberge Alps.
The path crosses a dry river bed and then
becomes a mixture of easy cabled kletterstieg and concrete steps. There are a
few sections of very narrow ledges that are quite exposed but not too
difficult. To the right there are a couple of proper kletterstieg routes that lead to other
tops in the range.
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| Passauerhutte from below |
At the top of the corrie there was the now closed
Passauerhutte – although it does have an open
winterraum and
a
room, like a conservatory, where you can sit inside in poor weather. Beyond the
hut was the evidence of the rain/snow earlier in the week and this evidence
took some pioneering and navigating work. Both the pioneering and navigating
slowed me down quite a bit – in other words, I lost the track for a while and
spent a lot of time and energy ploughing through fresh deep snow.
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| Behind the hut |
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| Now which way? |
When I eventually reached the steep rocky slopes of the summit ridge I was
quite pleased with myself as I had found the marked trail, again. However, it
seemed rather odd because instead of fixed metal cable etc the route up was
aided by rather ancient rope that at times was decidedly frayed and worn. As I
had already passed my planned ‘turn round’ time I very nearly gave up at this
point. Half way up the slope (cIiff?) I came across this sign:
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| Now they tell me! |
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| Can you see my footprints? |
There is no such corresponding sign at the bottom, mind you. But, anyway from this point on the
difficulties were only presented by the snow and ice rather than the climbing
difficulties. All the while I was muttering to myself ‘you should be turning
back, I know the winterraum is open but you haven’t got anything but a sandwich
made from stale bread and an apple, you should be turning back, you know’. The
obsessive hillbagger is replying – ‘yeah, but you don’t want to have to do this
all again, do you?’ Guess which side won?
The summit of Birnhorn (2634m P1665 i.e. an Ultra), as
ever, has an unimaginative and dull cross spoiling the view. Otherwise the
views were great – but the lateness of the hour was pressing. By now I was
beginning to worry if I would be able to get as far as the Passauerhutte before
dusk.
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| Leogang without the mist by now |
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| Summit view |
The new kletterstieg route turned out to be fairly easy,
despite the snow. The only disadvantage it brought was that I had to pioneer a
new route across the deep fresh snow in the corrie rather than use the one I
had made on the ascent. Eventually I found my original track and then an easier
way back to the hut, than I had used on the ascent.
By the time I had reached
the hut there was just about enough daylight to be able to find my way around
the room to discover the candles, lighters and wood burning stove. And,
thankfully (because I was the first person to use the room this winter) a plentiful
supply of teabags, powdered soup,
chocolate and alcohol.
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| View from the hut in the morning |
At daybreak, in the morning, I set off back down the
mountain – with a hangover.
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| Birnhorn from the west |
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| Chuffing flight |
So, with my commitment to head north and eventually home,
what did I do? I drove east to Ursprungtal near Bayrischzell. Most people
tackle Grosser Traithen (1852m P1007 – a Major) from the eastern side from
Gasthaus Rosengasse. However I did not want to drive all that way. 
So I set off
from the Stockerhutte car park (820m) on track 658 which winds its way through
the autumnal coloured forest to an alp at Fellalm. At that point it meets track
652 which climbs through the dwarf pines to the summit. With another great view
of the Wilder Kaiser – and I could see that the rest of Bavaria to the north
was covered by an extensive blanket of low cloud. And that later that day I
knew I would be driving under that cloud – oh bother! My internal dialogue, as
I watched the leaves fall off the trees and headed back down to the van, was
along the lines of the old Clash song. What should I do?
