Grauspitz, Liechtenstein

Highest Point in Liechtenstein

 We stopped at the ridge, dropped our packs with our mountain in the backdrop of the popular summit. After lunch we made our way up the trail and traversed the ridge around the south side of mountains to points that included fixed anchors in many points. Only a few hundred feet from the true summit of Falknis, we reached a point which gave us our first glimpse of Grauspitze and to our dismay, dropped over 500 feet to a saddle up the west face which was virtually unclimbable from our vantage point. We thought about climbing Falknis since we were so close but decided due to difficultly of climbing the peak we came and a gaining this summit might lead to a consolation prize which were unwilling to do, moved on. As noted on summitpost.com, the East Ridge is the route to climb and even that is noted as a problem, and here we were way on the West side. There was even a moment in our minds and I verbally said it that this mountain might not be in the cards since we took such a out of the way route and still needed to traverse over 2000 feet back to the basin and hike the entire length in order to reach the other side just to turn around and climb back up the knife ridge back up the length of the basin. However, a joint of energy hit me and we were off down the ridge and committed to a second climb of the day.

The country was remarkable and shared by a few hikers in the perfect afternoon sun but I felt the solitude of the mountains as we hiked back across until we reached the point were we do we should've been before at the base of the east ridge. As noted on summitpost.com this climb required careful climbing without fixed anchors and at a few points due to the exposure below, we thought of roping up at a few tricky sections including a cross memorializing a climber who died a few years back. We took our time and were careful with our steps and within the hour near the summit. The steps onto the summit deserved some serious yahoos on a mountain that tested us in our drive, ability, and commitment to meet our goal by climbing the highest point in the country of Liechtenstein including the third of this journey. Across the U-shaped mountain ridge and valley below I could see another mountain would be nice to climb some day, but we were out of time. I come to find out that that mountain is named Glegghorn. To me at that moment, I was on the summit…
 

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