A comedy of errors in the Salzburg Alps

[Pointless Parasite]

This is my report of the most frustrating, ridiculous trip to the mountains I've ever had. I suppose what happened was my punishment for having the audacity to combine a walking trip with a work meeting in Vienna. The meeting lasted until the 28th of March and I didn't fancy international travel on (the original) brexit day. So I thought I could avoid any potential travel chaos and climb a few mountains at the same time, perhaps bag another couple of 2000ers.

I spent a long time choosing a suitable base; somewhere easily accessible from Vienna, while being close to some decent mountains. I was tempted by the Alps in Southern Austria, near the Slovenian border, but the trains to that region are quite slow and would have caused problems catching my flight back home. Likewise Innsbruck was just too far away. So I opted for Salzburg, which is only 2.5 hours away from Vienna and close to some very nice looking mountains.

I planned to climb Berchtesgadener Hochtron (1973 m), a huge sprawling mountain overlooking Salzburg, first, then perhaps the much more impressive Hoher Göll (2522 m) the next day.

Berchtesgadener Hochthron (1973 m)

Using Google Maps, I worked out the shortest route up Berchtesgadener Hochtron was from the South, which is on the German side (the border is a funny shape around Salzburg). This meant getting a train to the small town of Bischofwiesen. The day before, I bought a map of the area and looked up train times, which seemed to have changed since the last time I checked. There were a lot more direct trains and the price was a couple of Euros more than I'd thought. I should have realised something wasn't right

The next day I bought my ticket and boarded the train. I was surprised to see a number of unfamiliar stations on the schedule. Even more strangely, the train was scheduled to stop at Werfen, which I knew was South of Salzburg, rather than South East. Perhaps the train took a strange route, I thought. Eventually after 10 minutes of the train going in obviously the wrong direction, the penny dropped. I looked at my ticket. It said Bischofshofen. I was supposed to be going to Bischofswiesen. I blame autocomplete, which defaults to Bischofshofen and doesn't even show Bischofswiesen until you reach the 'w'.

Hoher Göll (2522 m)

At least Bischofshofen is in the mountains. In fact there are some huge ones nearby, including Hochkonig (2941 m) and Tennegebirge (a sprawling massif up to 2430 m). The map I'd bought was actually two maps bundled together and one map covered Bischofshofen. Unfortunately I'd left that one back in the hotel, so I was without a map.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I walked out the train station to the East, not having a vague idea of which route to take. There are a few footpath signs but all seemed to be low level routes. None said 'this way to the big mountains'. I wasted time traversing back and forth along tracks and roads without getting any closer to the mountains.

Tennegebirge (up to 2430 m)

I followed a forest road which looked promising. It seemed to lead towards a couple of reasonable looking forested peaks to the East. They weren't high, but were better than nothing. But the forest track eventually led to a dead end. I knew the situation was hopeless. It was the most frustrating feeling being surrounded by incredible mountains but unable to even get near them.

I decided to save my energy and call it a day. Returning to my hotel, my frustration was compounded when I looked at the map I'd left behind. Not only were the two forested peaks respectable 1800 m mountains, but there was an obvious route to the top from Bischofshofen.

The second day was almost as ridiculous as the first.

This time I managed to get the right train and reached Bischofswiesen at 9.20. Plenty of time to climb Berchtesgadener Hochtron and get back for the return train.

Starting from the train station I followed a marked path into the forest. At first, things seemed to be going OK, although the route was very indirect. Eventually I reached a branch in the road with two options. One route was signposted as Berchtesgadener Hochtron, the other, in the opposite direction, to Rauher Kopf ('rough head'). Looking at the map, a path led from Rauher Kopf over an interesting looking ridge to the summit of Berchtesgadener Hochtron. The direct route looked fairly low level, traversing under Rauher Kopf before heading up to the summit.

I decided to take the Rauher Kopf route as it looked more interesting. I have no idea whether this was the right choice or not, although it is difficult to conceive how the other route could've been any worse than the chosen route. Still, it started off OK and the views South were spectacular. Watzmann, surely the most impressive mountain in Germany (and the highest entirely within its borders), looked especially fine:

Watzmann (2713 m)

In the summer, Watzmann is completely snow free.

Hochkalter (2607 m)

Hoher Göll also looked impressive:

After a short while, a small path left the main forest road and entered the trees. This is where the problems began. There were patches of snow everywhere, and the path was frequently buried. Often, it was difficult to determine where the path emerged at the other side of the snow patch. It didn't take long before I was lost, and going 'off piste'. After climbing up a steep bank, I was surprised to find the path right in front of me. This frequent appearance and disappearance of the path was a recurring theme of the day.

The ground got steeper and steeper, with increasing snow cover and fallen trees. The latter were especially difficult to negotiate and were frequently rotten.

I was surprised to meet another walker on his way down, wearing running gear and using ski poles. He made his way down to my position and started talking in chirpy German I could barely understand. I said my thanks, hoping he wasn't warning me about a deadly trap or a hornet's nest up ahead. Eventually I forced my way up onto the crest of a narrow ridge. The route ahead didn't look particularly safe. The snow was crushing the tops of the trees down and it was difficult to see and solid ground, either side. I had the impression of a huge snow drift supported up in the tree tops, ready to collapse at any point and send me down the steep slopes either side.

In fact the snow felt remarkably stable and I was able to easily traverse along until I reached the top of a large vertical rock step. Looking down I could see one of the route markers down below. I managed to downclimb and set off up the final climb to the summit. This was a tricky scramble up a combination of rock, snow and tree branches.

After reaching a small scientific monitoring station (seen in the photos above), a final easy snow slope led to the summit of Grosser Rauher Kopf:

That was as far as I got. I could see the ridge ahead of me leading to Berchtesgadener Hochtron, but any solid ground was obscured by a combination of deep snow and trees. It just didn't look safe at all and there were no footprints in the snow beyond this point.

The views were spectacular:

There was a visitor's logbook inside a metal box at the foot of the cross. I signed my name and started the descent. As expected, descending was dicey, especially over the snow sections. Soon after reaching the signpost at the rock step I met another climber coming up. I was still a little uncertain what I had actually climbed, so asked the climber to point it out on the map. I had indeed climbed Rauher Kopf (1604 m). OK, nothing special but it was a summit of sorts and a huge improvement over the previous day.

The descent was an ordeal, almost entirely 'off piste'. Up until now, the snow had felt remarkably stable given how old it looked. I was probably getting over-confident and stopped concentrating when traversing a large snow slope. Despite taking several steps with my boots barely getting any purchase, I tried to rush along to the edge of the snow and lost my footing. I slid a few metres and was stopped by a tree before I had a chance to self arrest. No major harm done, although my shoulder was painful for the next day or so.

After the worst of the descent was over I could start enjoying the incredible scenery. God knows what would have happened if I'd tried Hoher Göll, as intended. Did I have any reasonable chance of climbing it? Possibly, but only with an overnight stay nearby. Climbing it as a day trip from Salzburg would be a tall order, even in summer with no snow cover. It's actually an area of karst limestone with numerous vertical caves, so even the area is not glaciated, there are equivalents of crevasses to fall into.

I finally made it back to the tiny Bischofswiesen bahnhof at about 2 pm, catching the 14.40 train back to Salzburg, via Freilassung. Remarkably, there are direct trains from here to Dusseldorf and Hamburg every day.

[regedmunds]

A great read, very impressed, looks a great area.

[Sgurr]

If you are anything like me, you will vow to take a crash course in German, and then somehow never get around to it. We went hut to hut in the early 60s and kept meeting concerned looking people who would say "Blah, blah, blah Hildersheimer Hutte blah blah blah." We would say "Ist Hildersheime Hutte Da" pointing ahead, and they would say "Yah, aber blah blah blah blah." So we carried on, and on. We were going to stay there overnight., the first night of our holiday. Finally we got to Hildersheimer Hutte, and it was indeed "da" but an avalanche had destroyed it, and kindly folk were serving soup from trestle tables in the ruins. So we had to to do a second day's walk over and round huge boulders to get to the next hut.

On the other hand we didn't fall down snow slopes, mis-book trains, or anything like that. What a beautiful day, I hope you took your sun cream One day, we didn't, and I ended up with my face in bandages for three days, but that's another story of much worse incompetence than yours.

[Pointless Parasite]

Lol, yes there are a few essential German words, especially gefährlich (dangerous), Lawine (avalanche), Gewitter (thunderstorm) and Gletscherspalte (crevasse). 'Hornissen nest' was thankfully not needed this time.

By the way, this clip of the knife edge traverse of Watzmann is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB6VG5m6zSk