Blog Posts in Category: Mountaineering

Watzmann Überschreitung

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Via Ferrata Short Link

I have wanted to traverse the Watzmann since first visiting the Berchesgaten a few years ago on a landscape photography trip, where I took the photo below. On our second summer holiday this year we had decided to stay around Munich and with a perfect weather forecast, and spaces in the Watzmannhaus we decided to head over to Berchtesgaden to do the classic route crossing the Watzmann. The route itself was absolutely wonderful, and it was also nice to stay at the hut given it was in such a fine position looking out over Berchtesgaden and the surrounding peaks. The route certainly had all the aspects required to make it a wonderful experience, great views, plenty of exposure and fun scrambling and it was great to look down to the impressive Königssee. The descent from the ridge to the Wimbachgrieshütte was pretty unpleasant and very long, but was worth it given how good the ridge itself was! We debated if we should do the route in one day or two, in the end we decided to stay in the hut and do the route in two days, as the guidebook. Read the full article…

Stripsenjoch Climbing

Alastair BegleyAustria, Rock Climbing Short Link

As the risk of thunderstorms reduced we upgraded our plans for today from a walk to some short multi-pitch climbing in the Wilder Kaiser. We decided to head to the Gamswand near Stripsenjoch in the Wilder Kaiser, as it was a relatively short drive, followed by a 90min walk into a crag with lots of two pitch UIAA 4 and 5 routes. Our walk in was very warm, but we made excellent time, and were at the crag in just over 70mins, or so we thought…! Our guidebook only had a single crag in it, so when we saw climbers in about the right place we simply headed to where they were, little did we know we were on the wrong crag, 200m away from where we should be! After looking at the topo in a confused state for a while, we set off up a route as it most closely matched what we were expecting, however it certainly wasn’t the easy 3+ warm up which were were expecting, but actually was a really enjoyable UIAA 5 pitch with lots of delicate slab climbing. The second pitch was mostly easier,. Read the full article…

Direkter Ostgrat Blankenstein

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Rock Climbing Short Link

With a cloudy forecast we set off to climb an easy multipitch route on the Blankenstein, near Tegernsee. I was keen to do this route, having previously admired the Blankenstein while doing a winter circuit of the Risserkogel and Wallberg with James. We were supposed to be meeting with some friends from the IMG, however due to S-Bahn cancellations they were very delayed, so we set off alone as we didn‘t want to wait for 90mins in the car park! The walk up was very straightforward and we made excellent time, the conditions were however worse than we were expecting! The temperatures were somewhat different to what we have had to become accustomed to recently! Despite the odd spit of rain, and the cold conditions we decided to set off anyway. One of the crux moves was the move off the ground, which was made harder by not being able to feel anything in my fingers having waited for the team in front of us to get to the first belay after getting lost! Once the first move had been dispatched, the rest of the pitch was a delicate traverse,. Read the full article…

Mutterberger See

Alastair BegleyAustria, Walking Short Link

After paragliding in the morning we needed to find a short walk to do in the afternoon, so that we could be back before the forecasted thunderstorms in the afternoon. The obvious choice was a walk from our local lift, the Elferbahn, but as we climbed on the Elferturm a few days previously, we decided to get the bus all the way up the valley and walk up to the Mutterberger See. The start of the walk up was very hot and up a fairly uninspiring large track, but after about 60% of the ascent we finally turned off onto smaller walking paths and the views became a lot better. We enjoyed some lunch while admiring the view down the valley, before continuing onto the lake. We took the opportunity to cool down and both enjoyed a refreshing swim in the surprisingly warm mountain like at 2500m. After drying off and finishing our lunch we set off on the descent, which was lovely as it contoured around up high with wonderful views down the Stubai valley. Unfortunately the day was getting hotter and muggier which meant that we were both. Read the full article…

Große Ochsenwand Klettersteig

Alastair BegleyAustria, Via Ferrata Short Link

We chose to climb the Große Ochsenwand (or Schlicker) Klettersteig today, as it was a beautiful but very hot day and we thought that getting up high would help reduce the impact of the heat, how wrong we were. It was also a route without much time for being slow, as the guidebook time was 7 hours, and there was only 7.5 hours from first lift to last lift! The day started with a frustrating loss of 200m of height as we descended towards our objective. The descent was very straight forwards, however finding the ascent was not. The guidebook said there was a well travelled path, but we certainly could not find one initially across the scree field, we eventually found some faded red paint spots and then found a more substantial path. We were very hot by the time we got to the base of the route, and for the vast majority of the route, but this did not take away from the enjoyment of a wonderful route up the huge face, with brilliant views down the valley and of the large rock faces around us. The route. Read the full article…

Elfer Nordturm Climbing

Alastair BegleyAustria, Rock Climbing Short Link

After a few days of paragliding we felt that it was time to return to one of our more normal activities and do some exercise! We decided to go climbing on the summit behind the launch we have been regularly using, and that I have flown over multiple times. Given the hot conditions at the moment, it was also very important that the route faced north, which made it ideal! The ascent to the route was very enjoyable with wonderful views of the Stubai valley. We were soon at the start of the Klettersteig, which we followed for the first few sections before making the very loose descent down to the huge face the route climbed up. After some faff finding the start of the route, amongst horrible loose rocks, the route was a joy to climb. It was really well bolted, with excellent rock (mostly) and enjoyable climbing. The first pitch was IV, and was mostly up a chimney, which took the ”traditional” option to get up. The second pitch looked outstanding from below, and didn’t disappoint, and it really did go at the stated grade of IV despite. Read the full article…

Hochries

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

Due to a very unstable forecast we wanted to do a short walk in the morning which was close to Munich. We ended up deciding on a circuit including the Hochries. As we set off in the morning the weather was lovely, however as we approached the ridge the cloud started to build and we found ourselves in the cloud hoping that this wasn’t a sign of an impending storm, earlier than forecast. Nonetheless we continued and enjoyed some fleeting atmospheric views and some wonderful views in the brief moments without any cloud. As we descended from Feichteck the cloudbase seemed to lift slightly and meant that we had enjoyable views while walking along the ridge to Hochries. Here we enjoyed an early lunch at the Alm on the summit, before making a hasty retreat back down to the car.

Kampenwand Climbing & Paragliding

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Paragliding, Rock Climbing Short Link

Due to the potential for afternoon storms, we wanted to find a route which was easy, relatively long and not too far away from Munich. We ended up settling on heading to the Kampenwand, which had the added advantage of being able to get a lift up to the route! We linked up multiple routes along the ridge to have a full day out, climbing in the sun with wonderful views. We did not end up climbing exactly what we had originally planned, due to a mixture of ending up at the wrong start place, not wanting to do 6m of climbing to have to abseil back down (and then ending up behind a group of 3 who would have caught up) and a pitch being harder than expected, damp and runout. In the end we linked the following routes, with a few abseils along the way between the different crags: Westgipfel, Westseite, Torweg, 80m, f4 Westgipfel, Westseite, Westgrat (top section), f2 Teufelsturm, Nordwestkante, 45m, f3 Hauptgipfel, Nordseite, Nordwestverschneidung, 70m, f4+, DNF Hauptgipfel, Nordseite, Ostgrat, 150m, f2 It was a great day out in the sun, with some enjoyable climbing,. Read the full article…